Eliminate Stressful Work Days With A "Slow Productivity" Mindset

00:00:00.000 | Well, enough of that nonsense.

00:00:01.400 | All right, what do we got?

00:00:02.560 | Let's keep rolling.

00:00:03.560 | See, I'm getting quicker now, Jesse.

00:00:05.040 | OK.

00:00:06.040 | I'm picking up the pace.

00:00:07.040 | So next question is from Sam.

00:00:08.960 | He's a 28-year-old PhD student.

00:00:11.840 | And he says, "I found the 500 words a day formula for slow productivity to be a useful

00:00:17.480 | frame.

00:00:18.480 | However, as a PhD student in computer science, a lot of my work doesn't involve much writing.

00:00:23.360 | How would I adapt the 500 words a day target for my research?"

00:00:28.560 | So the context of the 500 words a day reference there from Sam is at some point, I don't know,

00:00:35.800 | maybe a few months ago, on the podcast, I talked about John McPhee.

00:00:42.320 | I think I was probably talking about an essay I wrote for my newsletter, whatever.

00:00:46.320 | The point is I was emphasizing that John McPhee is seen in the context of his entire career

00:00:53.080 | as being very productive.

00:00:54.760 | He's written all these books.

00:00:55.760 | He has the Pulitzers.

00:00:56.760 | He has the National Book Award and a huge bibliography.

00:01:01.800 | But he doesn't actually work that much on any given day.

00:01:06.880 | In fact, his target is he admits just to write 500 words a day.

00:01:09.800 | So this was a classic example of slow productivity.

00:01:13.560 | This working at this natural, sustainable pace over time can produce great stuff.

00:01:18.380 | So if we expand the timeline at which we're evaluating productivity to be a career or

00:01:24.160 | the last 10 years, as opposed to having a narrow timeline of today or the last week,

00:01:29.260 | you get this much more sustainable rhythm of work.

00:01:31.680 | You don't have to be busy or killing yourself every day with work to produce stuff that

00:01:35.160 | you're proud of.

00:01:36.160 | Okay.

00:01:37.160 | So Sam is saying, "What is the equivalent of 500 words a day if you're not a writer?"

00:01:43.120 | And I think that's a good question.

00:01:45.200 | So we could address this first of all, just specifically in terms of Sam's particular

00:01:49.960 | context, which is a PhD student.

00:01:51.960 | And you look, I see that, I feel your pain there, Sam.

00:01:54.720 | I used to do a lot of appearances at boot camps, graduate student dissertation boot

00:02:00.800 | camps.

00:02:01.800 | I used to do this at Georgetown.

00:02:02.800 | I would also do it at a nearby Catholic university when I knew some professors over there.

00:02:07.660 | It's very common that you would do these once a year gatherings, they're called dissertation

00:02:11.320 | boot camps, where grad students get together to hear talks and motivate each other to work

00:02:16.400 | on their dissertations.

00:02:17.860 | And I was a broken record at these boot camps because all of the advice was always centered

00:02:24.440 | on write every day, get your writing done.

00:02:27.920 | Don't forget to write because in a lot of disciplines, writing is the actual primary

00:02:33.300 | activity that pushes a thesis forward.

00:02:36.220 | Not the case of mathematics, not the case in computer science.

00:02:40.380 | You write papers eventually, but research is not writing.

00:02:44.880 | It's solving math equations, trying to figure out theorems, running experiments.

00:02:48.540 | And so I used to come to these boot camps and I was a broken record.

00:02:51.580 | I would say, stop saying writing is your generic verb for working.

00:02:56.140 | For a lot of people, the core of their work has nothing to do with actually writing.

00:02:59.100 | So I feel your pain, Sam.

00:03:01.980 | Writing is, should not be seen as a universal verb for doing deep work in graduate school.

00:03:07.060 | But what I want to do here is generalize out and answer this for people in general.

00:03:11.560 | I don't want to get too academia specific.

00:03:13.700 | So let's just be in general.

00:03:15.940 | How do we translate this general philosophy of 500 words a day to other types of work?

00:03:23.980 | What I think is key here is this notion of slow and steady and timeline expansion.

00:03:33.300 | If you expand your timeline on which you are evaluating your productivity to something

00:03:38.060 | at the scale of years, then often a varied slow and steady approach is going to work

00:03:44.900 | quite well.

00:03:47.580 | And when you're evaluating your production on what you really care about at that type

00:03:50.540 | of expanded timeline, you begin to see the futility or the performative unnecessity of

00:03:59.540 | really hard days.

00:04:01.860 | You know, I'm just burning the midnight oil.

00:04:04.420 | I've been writing all day.

00:04:05.420 | I'm going to write till midnight tonight and wake up really early to write.

00:04:08.580 | You could do that.

00:04:09.820 | And maybe in the moment you'll be like, man, I know I'm being productive because look how

00:04:12.340 | hard I'm working.

00:04:13.340 | But when you're talking about what do I produce over the next five years, that's not sustainable.

00:04:17.880 | It also doesn't really matter.

00:04:20.460 | Working quality work again and again in the right setting, giving the work the respect

00:04:26.020 | and the support it needs to be good.

00:04:29.320 | Going up and down in intensity.

00:04:30.320 | You know what?

00:04:31.320 | I'm taking a week off.

00:04:32.320 | I didn't get there.

00:04:33.320 | I was sick today.

00:04:34.320 | I didn't write.

00:04:35.320 | I didn't do my homework.

00:04:36.320 | Did you produce something that you're proud of?

00:04:37.780 | And that is going to be best served by slow, steady quality.

00:04:41.660 | So I think that's how we generalize John McPhee is 500 words a day is you don't have to be

00:04:48.260 | exhausted or frantic today to having ended up produce something great next year.

00:04:57.360 | You need to slowly accrete good quality work at a reasonable rate.

00:05:02.780 | And that also happens to be a much more sustainable way to live and work.

00:05:06.020 | So that's what I would say.

00:05:08.780 | Slow steady don't not work, but don't be so proud of yourself for staying up real late.

00:05:15.880 | That just means you forgot a deadline and you will guaranteed win a Pulitzer Prize like

00:05:21.020 | John McPhee.

00:05:22.380 | [MUSIC]

Eliminate Stressful Work Days With A "Slow Productivity" Mindset

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