I picked up Cal Newport’s latest book, Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout in the airport on my way to Yosemite. For someone who has spent a career making things better, faster, and cheaper, the title was a bit of an oxymoron. The cover on the other hand – a cabin in the woods at the edge of a canyon – was exactly where I wanted to be. I have been meditating on how these two ideas come together for a few months now. This book challenges me to think about the nature and rhythm of work and how to sustain professional growth over time.
Slow Productivity is a book for knowledge workers, which speaks to many roles in the legal industry. Yet, Newport concedes all knowledge work is not alike. Some knowledge workers have more control over the way they work than others, and some knowledge work is more routine than creative. This is also a book of illustrations of people who made an exponential impact in their field by operating differently than many of their peers. Many of the examples are writers and artists who were the original remote knowledge workers through the ages. Intuitively, this is what fascinates me about biographies. If I can adopt a few of the practices of successful people, maybe I can become more like them. I recognize that some of Newport’s practical guidance may be controversial in our workplaces, as such the comments or opinions expressed here are my own.
Newport’s premise is that knowledge workers operate on a belief that good work requires increased busyness. Anyone in a growing company needs to accomplish more on their daily task list, grow, guard, and get new customers and improve the processes within the area in which they work. It’s the perception of performance as activity that can lead to a measure of “pseudo-productivity,” replacing value creation as the engine for growth. The debate in the legal industry over whether to return to the office or work remotely has only heightened our attentiveness to productivity.
I work in Husch Blackwell’s virtual office, The Link, and since the pandemic am increasingly mindful of the setting and routine necessary to be productive at home. To sustain healthy mindsets and good work habits, our Legal Operations team continues to discuss good mental hygiene and how to keep our eye on the ball as we juggle requests for fixed fees, proposals, and budgets, opportunities to apply AI tools, and the full range of project management offerings – in addition to those initiatives which aim at enhancing the quality of our service for our internal and external clients.
Doing Fewer Things
The first principle of slow productivity is creating margin by doing fewer things. This allows knowledge workers to reduce the “overhead tax” that accumulates as their commitments grow and encourages greater levels of experimentation and creativity at work. Since David Allen first published Getting Things Done in 2001, good task management has started with a realistic inventory of one’s work at various scales – daily tasks, ongoing projects, and the broader mission. In the last two decades though, the way we initiate and respond to requests at work has become much more asynchronous. Even if you login before the workday officially begins, it’s easy to be buried in the avalanche of email, Teams messages and unsolicited calendar invites. While Newport’s case studies featuring Jane Austen, John McPhee, and Andrew Wiles are compelling illustrations of people who excelled by doing less, is this feasible for the rest of us?
Newport’s thesis is that we need to move past the goal lines of getting things done and consider the people and timelines that influence our workload. The administrative tax of constantly taking on more activities also takes its toll in overloading collaboration with colleagues. So, he proposes an alternative of real-time conversations to mitigate the duty imposed by our responsiveness. Picking up the phone or calling over Teams isn’t rocket science. It’s a tried-and-true method of getting feedback, sharing strategy and resolving issues.
Newport also suggests that we consider longer time horizons instead of simply the amount accomplished in a single day, so that knowledge workers can legitimately defer lower priority projects in light of the cycles needed to complete their most important contributions. By limiting each scale of inventory using a variety of well-documented project management techniques (good intake procedures, formalizing commitments and deadlines, delegating, etc.), knowledge workers can focus on their priorities, complete work which makes the most difference to their companies, and minimize the indirect impact of their actions on their colleagues.
Work at a Natural Pace
For centuries most people embraced the natural rhythm of work until the industrial revolution stripped away the seasonality of life at work. Newport asserts that a manufacturing mentality leads to burnout and suggests that returning to a natural pace is key to sustainable performance. His illustrations of artists, such as Ian Fleming writing the bestselling James Bond series and Lin Manuel Miranda creating Broadway hits like In the Heights and Hamilton, underscore how returning to projects over time can produce exceptional results. This is where it’s important to distinguish between the types of knowledge work at hand. Not every knowledge project is such a creative undertaking as writing a book or the script for a play. For many regular activities, our Legal Operations team consistently moves the needle by sustained effort, incremental improvements, and applying the latest technology - all of which build momentum over time (see the flywheel in Jim Collins Good to Great).
Newport suggests that the time scale is again what matters, as intensity can only be sustained for short periods. In sports this is called interval training. As a cyclist I use this approach to build strength for the season. While appropriate rest is also essential, endurance is accumulated through consistency over long periods of time. In different places Newport concedes that some knowledge workers may lack the ability to implement such varied schedules but should consider their options when those opportunities arise.
What’s most challenging though is his assertion that we tend to be our own worst enemy when it comes to distraction and busyness. How can we stay attentive to larger culture enhancing or brand elevating initiatives in the midst of day-to-day operations? Newport recommends placing guardrails around such high-impact initiatives so that knowledge workers can return to these projects regularly, over time, with creativity and capacity for collaboration. Husch Blackwell didn’t become uncommon because we kept our foot on the gas of lagging indicators. Every successful law firm does that. Husch Blackwell is uncommon because its leaders pursue truly first of their kind initiatives, such as The Link, HB In-House, and the Legal Operations Summit, by returning to ideas and developing programs that align with where our leaders want the firm to go.
Obsess Over Quality
After a tumultuous 1966 world tour, Newport reports the Beatles spent 700 hours in the studio over 129 days recording Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, compared to their 1963 album which was finished in a single day. The Beatles decision not to tour allowed them to experiment with instrumentation and arrangement. The album was hugely successful and redefined the artistic standards for pop music. Newport believes this third principle of slow productivity – to obsess over quality – is the engine that drives professional growth and holds the first two concepts together. For knowledge workers Newport states that intensive focus on core activities is incompatible with busyness. Just as Apple’s simplification regime under Steve Jobs (see Insanely Simple by Ken Segall) led to transformative growth, preoccupation with quality drives one to meet, exceed and redefine current standards over time. Newport also acknowledges that the pursuit of excellence requires maturity, so that an obsession over quality does not lead to paralysis by perfectionism.
How does one obsess over quality? Newport recommends immersing oneself in the appreciation of domains that are different than one's core fields. For instance, our Legal Operations team includes people with expertise in fields as diverse as technology, design, legal practice, client experience and process engineering - in addition to finance and project management. In our team meetings we discuss concepts like the beginner’s mind and the growth mindset – using play and experimentation to explore ideas and develop creativity. Additionally, raising standards of quality is also accomplished in one's core areas in small group settings with colleagues or peers, who can inform taste and drive performance, such as Virginia Woolf’s Bloomsbury Group. More than a decade ago, Husch Blackwell pursued such uncommon strategies by reorganizing the firm into industry teams and hiring business professionals to lead the firm alongside our partners, and now pairs our Data Science team with lawyers and business professionals to uncover new ways of delivering legal services.
Slow Productivity?
Early on Newport confesses that he settled on the word “slow,” after studying the Slow Food movement – traditionally prepared food, resulting from trial-and-error experimentation with fresher ingredients, consumed over longer meals in communal settings. I experienced slow food in Custer, South Dakota at Skogen Kitchen after a local recommended the restaurant as far away as Sundance, Wyoming. California Chef Joseph Raney curates a limited menu with seasonal ingredients in this off broadway, intimate and cozy space. The service was exceptional, with more attention to detail and timing than Manhattan’s Bryant Park Grill. The waitress shared every ingredient in the Lamb Bolognese, how it was prepared with Cotes du Rhone and surprised me with an offer to speak to the chef. It was like being treated to dinner in Amor Towles A Gentleman In Moscow, with Count Alexander Rostov as my waiter. The experience was delightful and would clearly score a 10 on any Net Promoter survey. I suspect we can all appreciate something about Slow Food.
Is slow productivity a viable option for knowledge work? Given the demands and nature of knowledge work it sounds appealing to systematically cultivate better habits than those which lead to burnout, quiet quitting and resignation. To know whether Newport’s recommendations are appropriate for a specific role or project will require thoughtful consideration of the nature, constraints and purpose of the work. His insights and illustrations though are thought provoking and inspire me to continue to experiment with doing fewer things, being conscious of my pacing, and obsessing over quality at work and at home.
