Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout

by Cal Newport

Do fewer things. Work at a natural pace. Obsess over quality.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Digital Minimalism and Deep Work, a groundbreaking philosophy for pursuing meaningful accomplishment while avoiding overload.

Our current definition of “productivity” is broken. It pushes us to treat busyness as a proxy for useful effort, leading to impossibly lengthy task lists and ceaseless meetings. We’re overwhelmed by all we have to do and on the edge of burnout, left to decide between giving into soul-sapping hustle culture or rejecting ambition altogether. But are these really our only choices?

Long before the arrival of pinging inboxes and clogged schedules, history’s most creative and impactful philosophers, scientists, artists, and writers mastered the art of producing valuable work with staying power. In this timely and provocative book, Cal Newport harnesses the wisdom of these traditional knowledge workers to radically transform our modern jobs. Drawing from deep research on the habits and mindsets of a varied cast of storied thinkers—from Galileo and Isaac Newton, to Jane Austen and Georgia O’Keefe—Newport lays out the key principles of “slow productivity,” a more sustainable alternative to the aimless overwhelm that defines our current moment. Combining cultural criticism with systematic pragmatism, Newport deconstructs the absurdities inherent in standard notions of productivity, and then provides step-by-step advice for workers to replace them with a slower, more humane alternative.

From the aggressive rethinking of workload management, to introducing seasonal variation, to shifting your performance toward long-term quality, Slow Productivity provides a roadmap for escaping overload and arriving instead at a more timeless approach to pursuing meaningful accomplishment. The world of work is due for a new revolution. Slow productivity is exactly what we need.

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Productivity, Business, Audiobook, Personal Development, Psychology

244 pages, Hardcover

First published March 5, 2024

About the author

Cal Newport is Provost’s Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Georgetown University, and the author of seven books. His ideas and writing are frequently featured in major publications and on TV and radio.

From his website: "I write about the intersection of digital technology and culture. I’m particularly interested in our struggle to deploy these tools in ways that support instead of subvert the things we care about in both our personal and professional lives."

Reviews

[Vicky · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately, I didn’t like this book. I wholeheartedly agree that we have to change how we measure productivity in knowledge work and that you need time to produce something of value, so I expected clear proposals of possible solutions or at least a well structured how-to guide.

It was everything but. The book is a collection of stories about famous people from different fields (Jewel, Benjamin Franklin, Stephenie Meyer, Steve Jobs etc.) which are relatively entertaining. Then the author draws whatever conclusions he needs to get to his point, sometimes contradicting the story or simply focusing on whatever he wants. It felt like he had read a bunch of biographies and wanted to write about them. The self-help aspect was just to sell the book to wider audiences.

When we actually get to the parts where he offers advice, it’s either very vague or non-applicable to the majority of knowledge workers. And while he addresses some of that (what to do if your schedule is not your own etc.) I found it very superficial. Many of his suggestions left me feeling like I’m not privileged enough to implement them. Find an investor? Yeah, sure.

Also, he constantly confuses knowledge work with creative work. I was confused whether I need to work less to pursue my creative hobbies that I would be able to monetise in the future (a.k.a hustling) or do I have to dedicate less time to administrative tasks so I can focus on valuable tasks in my field?

Finally, his advice is full of contradictions. Scale down your living expenses to work less but have more time! But also pay 2K for app subscriptions to make your work easier. Simplicity is the key! But also you should buy expensive things like software, hardware and notebooks to feel more “pro”. It feels like he wanted this book to be applicable to so many different people that it ended up being applicable to no one.

This book should have been a blog post.

[Joe James · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read enough of Newport to see that like 80% of the book is just rehashing his old ideas. There are some nuggets of novelty, but also some boring anecdotes about famous people that kind of extend this book even longer. If you're in this productivity space and have heard his pitch before, there's not much to be gained here.

[R Gee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been a follower of Cal Newport for a while, and highly respect his approach to productivity. I particularly enjoy his typical analysis to productivity topics - he often takes a pragmatic and scientific approach to determining why his proposed theories and strategies on producing quality work actually work. This book, in no way, rises to the quality that I expect from him.

Firstly, a large portion of the book feels like re-hashed lessons from other books of the Newport canon. For instance, strategies to implement point #1 ("Do fewer things") was literally described as "greatest hits" from Deep Work and other previous books.

Second, the book excessively describes biographies of historical figures. 90% of the book seems to be retelling the history of: scientists of the 17th and 18th centuries, singer-songwriters from the late 20th century, and modern day writers. If you are the average cubicle-dwelling "knowledge worker" that Cal is apparently writing for, I hope you can relate to Jewel, because you are going to get her entire life story.

The advice here is sparse, and a large portion is inaccessible to the knowledge workers he's trying to write for. What I walked away with is: I need to be more of cinephile, have a remote cabin in the woods, not take meetings on Mondays, and tell my coworkers to basically f-off. Great, thanks Cal, I think these tips will really help my career...

When I think of this book, on a good day it makes me sad, and on a bad day it makes me mad. Why? Because Cal is better than this. This is barely a step up from those absolute trash articles like "Why YOU need to start Benjamin Franklin's ELITE morning routine". One step up. It's cherry picked historical examples that are wildly tangential.

And what makes my most mad of all is that the terrible quality of this book betrays the deep truth it's trying to advocate for - that taking your time, choosing quality and persistence over mania, pays off. And it didn't. This book had tremendous responsibility and utterly betrayed it, if not invalidated it - which is why this is such a travesty.

[Ivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cal Newport is my productivity sherpa. He does it again. “Do fewer things. Work at a natural pace. Obsess over quality.” He confronts the cult of pseudo-productivity and argues for a slow and steady pace. Many of his insights were tried in different formats, including his writing for The New Yorker and his podcast. So a lot of of the tactical suggestions are what he calls his “best hits.” I appreciated the ample use of historical examples, living and dead (e.g. John McPhee, Benjamin Franklin, Jane Austen, Kerouac, Ian Fleming, Lin Manuel-Miranda, Georgia O’Keefe, Jewel, John Grisham, Neil Gaiman, Tolkien, et al.).

[Subhashini Sivasubramanian · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a disappointment. I love Cal Newport‘s podcast and was excited to pick this book.

I feel more confused after reading this book. Cal contradicts himself so much. I liked his other two books - Deep work and So good they can’t ignore you. They provided solid advice and were coherent. This book is incoherent though.

I think Cal had clear target audience for his other two books and he catered for them really well. In this book, he didn’t seem to have a clear target audience. He was writing for everyone and no one at the same time.

I have got more useful nuggets from his single podcast episode than this whole book. I recommend his podcast and other books, not this one.

[Kristen Christen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book at the perfect time! Recommended by my sister Grace the successful cooperate business woman of the family. Her work was reading Slow Productivity together like a book club which is so darn cute! Reading this at the end of 2024 gave me so many ideas to bring into the new year. The idea that I can slow down but create better work by focusing on quality! So many gold nuggets! If you are a creative or entrepreneur I would HIGHLY recommend!

[Sebastian Gebski · Rating 2 out of 5]

Massive disappointment - like almost every Newport's book after his stunning debut. Why so? Because of fundamental errors & hasty execution:

1. The author keeps misleading knowledge workers with creative workers & scientific researchers (that is just one example) - the nature of their work is COMPLETELY different. 90%+ examples brought here (like M. Curie-Sklodowska or astronomers) simply do not make sense ;/
2. Even the main issue the author tries to tackle seems defined wrongly ;( It's not about slow-or-fast work (as the speed of work for knowledge workers is hardly variable), but less-vs-more work (fewer or more working hours).
3. The author completely ignores the importance of execution. Creativity, awareness, correct analysis - this is all important, but the success is 90% about execution. And with execution: bandwidth/capacity is the constraint. There is time/space for creative work with "more slack" (to give space for deep thought/reflections), but sometimes it's freaking crunch time & speed-to-market is indeed what matters. Whether we like it or not :(
4. This book contains a lot of theory, but it's only backed up with bad examples (of scientists/artists/researchers), which kills all credibility.
5. Survivorship bias screams aloud from every corner of this book ;/
6. I was really glad when I realized there'd be a chapter on the pull-vs-push approach (in managing the flow of work), but ... seriously, this was very bad. If you're interested, read Goldratt or Reinertsen. You'll real 10x more.

Massive disappointment. 1.8 stars, rounded up to 2, because maybe it will inspire someone to work more on their work-life balance.

[Antigone · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was unfamiliar with Cal Newport. Which makes this my mistake.

Newport teaches computer science at Georgetown University. He's written several books and hosts a podcast called Deep Questions - none of which provided me the heads-up I required to recognize this work would be a throw-back to the wisdom we once received from efficiency experts. Because that's what the book aims toward, how to make the most efficient use of your professional energy, your professional focus, and your professional time. I, in my poetic fugue state, imagined something more along the lines of how technology has crapped all over our attention spans and snapped its whip to chivvy us through "speed art" the same way some of the more desperate among us have succumbed to speed dating. I thought, hey, Mr. Newport is going to remind me that I should be spending days and weeks and months, some serious temporal investment, on whatever I was attempting to create because the journey's the thing, and genius loves itself a patient hand, and intricacy is not only a good skill to master, it's a fine skill to master and worth going after. Byzantium, eh? Nay.

Mr. Newport, instead, would like to talk to me about "pseudo-productivity," and how much it's costing us at work to pretend to look busy. How businesses have come to value quantity of projects over quality of output. His primary focus is on "knowledge work," which he defines as: "The economic activity in which knowledge is transformed into an artifact with market value through the application of cognitive effort." And just like those efficiency experts of old who'd tighten up a factory's assembly line, our author is pretty much leading the movement to apply the same principles to office work.

Now you get a sense of how very far off-base I was with all of this. The movement is afoot, though. It's definitely afoot. And he has some excellent observations on professional burn-out, not to mention a surprising section on Jane Austen as "a powerful case" for a slower approach to productivity. In fact, his choice of personalities to sample as he made his point was distinctive and interesting and kept me going through to the end. Had I been seeking something new on the business philosophy front, this might have been the ticket. Maybe someday, who knows?

[Hamideh_R · Rating 4 out of 5]

کتاب کار آهسته، نوشته کال نیوپورت

بنظرم کتاب نکات خوبی برای ارائه داشت، هرچند که بعضی نکات تکراری بودن.
بهترین نکته ای که من از این کتاب گرفتم این بود که انجام دادن همزمان چند کار رو کنار بذارم چون واقعا این مسئله نا امیدی و خستگی زیادی برای من داره.
بیشترین تاکید نویسنده روی انجام دادن تعداد محدودی کار در یک بازه زمانی مشخص و با کیفیت بالاست تا اینکه چند کار رو با هم انجام بدیم و در نهایت به اون نتیجه ای که انتظار داشتیم نرسیم.
بعضی راه حل هایی که در کتاب ارائه شده برای زندگی کارمندی مناسب نیست اما بنظرم میشه با یک سری تغییرات اونها رو تا حدودی اجرا کرد.
امتیازم برای این کتاب ۳/۵

[Maddie Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

RATING BREAKDOWN
Themes: 4⭐️
Personal Enjoyment: 3⭐️
Total Rounded Average: 3.5⭐️

This non-fiction was a well-researched and validating reminder that the quality of work produced, and the satisfaction from producing it, require focus, time, and priority. I loved the tips and anecdotes throughout. I appreciate the message so much and am inspired to continue to say no, schedule focus blocks, and obsess over quality in my work and life.

[Nada Elshabrawy · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s not Newport’s best work but it’s still plenty useful and beneficial for me, especially now that I’m starting a PhD program and in need of every bit of inspiration.

[Janssen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This gave me SO MUCH to think about both in my work life and my personal life!

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I have two goals for this book. The first is focused: to help as many people as possible free themselves from the dehumanizing grip of pseudo-productivity. As I noted in the introduction, not everyone has access to this outcome. The philosophy I developed is meant primarily for those who engage in skilled labor with significant amounts of autonomy”

I feel like this quote should have been in the introduction and this is the issue I have with most of Cal's advice. Still giving it 4 stars cause this is good advice, but advice that many people will not be able to apply to their own work. I feel like his books are written for people who are either freelancers or higher executives. Most of us regular knowledge workers do not have any say in the way we use email or how we set up meetings.

“My suggestion is to try to put aside an afternoon to escape to the movies once per month, protecting the time on your calendar well in advance so it doesn’t get snagged by a last-minute appointment”>

That made me laugh, like I am not the master of my own hours :D I cannot do that unless I take the afternoon off. I still do it once in a while (taking the afternoon off) and I highly recommend doing the same, cause there is something so satisfying about going to the movies when everyone is at work.

Also kind of annoyed with the obsession of many digital minimalists advocates over "talking to real people". First some of us like to avoid that thank you very much, then when did you have an impromptu conversation that only laster 5 minutes? I will introduce you to some of my coworkers. As someone who works in an open plan office when I'm on site, the office is not a place where I can do deep work. At least if I'm at home I can manage the distractions (cause I am the master of the notifications of my digital tools)

So I did like the book, but I feel like the slower productivity community has the same issues as the regular one (it's very masculine for starters), it only talks to and about a very specific category of workers. Which now that I think of it, might be why I can't stick to one productivity system (or tools), those are developed by the same kind of people, and they won't work for me (you're welcome for that sudden realisation).

[Tim Casteel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of choppy: Lots of “I wrote in a 2021 article that…” It felt like 30 podcasts and blog posts stitched together.

Definite step down from Deep Work and Digital Minimalism. This one was an easier/quick read but felt like an intentional move toward more story-telling a la Malcolm Gladwell, Charles Duhigg, and the Heath brothers (whereas, I prefer a more to-the-point approach). I don't need to be entertained. The upside: easy to ingest via audiobook.

Previously I would have said that Newport is on a very short list (6!) of "authors I will automatically buy and read anything they publish” but I think I’ll wait on his next one and see if it’s worth reading.

One major miss of the book: I think he mis-diagnoses what drives our need to be insanely busy.

Newport attributes it to a need to appear busy. Sending a lot of emails, constantly responding to slack makes you look like you’re a good worker. He calls this enemy "Pseudo-productivity- the use of visible activity as the primary means of approximating actual productive effort.”
That definitely happens and is a helpful reminder that activity ≠ progress.

But I don’t think that’s at the root of what drives us to fill our schedules to the breaking point. I really like how all his books are very practical and immediately applicable. But because his diagnosis is wrong, his prescriptions are inadequate.

I think Byung-Chul Han is much closer to the truth in Burn Out Society re the auto-exploitation that is inevitable in the Achievement Society.
"Today, everyone is an auto-exploiting labourer in his or her own enterprise."

We’re all on a treadmill constantly asking “How much more do I need to achieve?” And the answer is always “More!"
But no one is making us work hard. We’re doing it to ourselves. WHY?

Because there is no one on earth who will say to us - “That’s enough.” “YOU are enough.”
Only by receiving the approval of God can we get off the treadmill.

[Maja (majareads) Milocanovich ☕️ · Rating 1 out of 5]

A slow DEATH.
I usually love Cal, let me first add that. But, this book !
Gave absolutely no value, recycled and repetitive “ideas” & if i hear “knowledge worker” one more time I’m gonna shoot myself

Sorry but this was excruciating

[Mehran · Rating 3 out of 5]

البته که تمام این کتاب در‌این بیت خلاصه می‌شه:))
رهرو آن نیست که گه‌ تند و گهی خسته رود
رهرو آنست که آهسته و پیوسته رود

[Kaylee Stanton · Rating 2 out of 5]

I listened to this book and the author/narrator (same person) left much to be desired. I felt good about myself while listening because I feel like I already do a lot of the things they talk about. One (and most importantly) is switching my career for something more sustainable for myself and adopting a more leisurely pace when it comes to getting stuff done and taking more intentional breaks to make sure I'm working from a full cup. Did I need to read this book? No. Am I happy I read it? Eh. Would I recommend it? Probably not.

[Chadi Raheb]

The book in a nutshell without any need for reading it:
- Do less
- Focus on quality instead of quantity
- Keep a normal pace

[Bkwmlee · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

I definitely have mixed feelings when it comes to my thoughts on this book. Admittedly, I don’t read a lot of non-fiction books, especially ones that fall into the “self-help” category (as this one undoubtedly does). One reason is because I don’t find most of these “self-help” books particularly “helpful” and since it takes me longer to read non-fiction books in general, I feel it wouldn’t be a good use of my time. In this light, Cal Newport’s latest book, Slow Productivity , is a bit of an anomaly – on the one hand, I found the anecdotes and stories it tells of a wide-ranging mix of famous people such as Isaac Newton, Jane Austen, Benjamin Franklin, Georgia O’Keefe, Jewel, Alanis Morrisette, etc. quite fascinating and entertaining. While some of the examples that Newport used to illustrate his points were a bit of a stretch in my opinion, the interesting storytelling made up for the shortcomings in this area, in my opinion. With that said however, as a practical guide on productivity, I don’t feel this book was tremendously helpful. Case in point – despite having just finished the book, I’ve already forgotten the “principles” that form the basis of the “slow productivity” philosophy that Newport advocates as well as the practical strategies that he suggests for combating burnout. Even after re-reading the summary in attempts to trigger my memory, what comes to mind first and foremost are the stories and anecdotes rather than the guidance or any actionable advice that Newport provides.

Given the above, it should probably come as no surprise that I don’t have a whole lot to say about this book, so my review will be shorter than what I usually write. I do recall thinking to myself at various points that I might be able to apply a particular concept in my life, but then I would get to one of the stories and would become so absorbed that I forget the previous point. Overall, I did get some things out of this book, so it definitely wasn’t a wasted effort in terms of reading experience, just maybe it didn’t serve the purpose that the author intended for it to serve.

[Ryan Lewis · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a miss for Newport, and it feels very much like he’s cashing in on the anti-work/quiet quitting trend. What’s good here is nothing new from his other books (especially Deep Work). Very conspicuously absent in the book is the counter, which would be the successes of people who are incessantly hustling.
Newport calls out pseudo-productivity, and this is good. But that’s also the whole point of Deep Work.
He gives his permission (thanks Cal!) and provides techniques to get away with doing less without getting noticed. Maybe some people do want or need this?

I am actually fine with what quiet quitting says that it is: stop going above and beyond and just fulfill your basic job duties. But this isn’t really what quiet quitters do. They try to see how little work they can do without getting caught and reprimanded.

If you need a break from going above and beyond and you fear that somehow that will make you fall behind in the rat race, then maybe you will find this book interesting or useful.

I found all of the stories of other people who took things slow to be interesting and inspiring (but not completely consistent).

Also, the book is written by someone who hustles incessantly.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ik las nooit eerder iets van Cal Newport hoewel ik al twee boeken van hem in mijn boekenkast heb staan. Ongelezen dus. Oeps.

Maar soms kruist een bepaald boek je weg en moet je het gewoon lezen. Dit was the right book at the right time voor mij. Ik heb er ontzettend veel aan gehad. Het heeft me aan het denken gezet over hoe ik processen binnen mijn eigen zaak kan vereenvoudigen of kan aanpakken zodat ik niet altijd aanwezig moet zijn in mijn zaak.

Voor het push/pull principe neem ik mee, want volgens mij was dat toch wel één van de redenen waardoor ik een beetje begon door te draaien. En social media blijft nog even van mijn telefoon. Als ik Instagram wil checken, dan kan ik altijd via de website snel een blik werpen.

Sowieso een boek dat ik er in de toekomst nog een aantal keren bij zal nemen en wie weet zelfs opnieuw zal lezen. En misschien moet ik toch ook maar eens werk maken van die ongelezen boeken van dezelfde auteur die hier stof staan te verzamelen. Misschien staat daar ook nog het één en het andere interessant in. Ahum.

[Emily Carlin]

Anyone who is a so-called “knowledge worker” knows that you can’t just stick more hours into your brain/body and expect to get our more work on the other side. You probably also know that three hours of focused effort is almost always more #productive than six hours of hazy attention.

The awkward thing, though, is that no one has any clue how to measure email job productivity. So we can’t really say for sure. In Slow Productivity, Newport argues that this is knowledge work’s rotten core. We continue to structure our days based on the rhythms of industrial work despite literally no evidence that the 40 hour week (of “hard-won policy to limit physical fatigue from factory work” origins) translates into the very different context of contemporary office life.

And since there’s no reliable way to measure actual productivity, we engage instead in “pseudo productivity,” which Newport defines as “the use of visible activity as the primary means of approximating actual productive effort.” Since no one can tell how productive anyone else is, the easiest way to appear as such is to respond quickly to Slack messages, join every meeting you’re invited to, stay late, publicly juggle multiple projects and responsibilities, etc. etc. Newport takes it as a given that this frenetic approach produces low-quality work and is also kinda soul-damaging.

Newport offers three principles to resist the cheap thrills of pseudo-productivity: do fewer things, work at a natural pace, and obsess over quality. He calls the framework “slow productivity,” after the Slow Food/Slow Cities/other Slow X movements of the eighties and nineties. Newport: “As I read more about [the founder of the Slow Food movement], I discovered that Slow Food is about more than meals, it’s an instantiation of two deep, innovative ideas that can be applied to many different attempts to build a reform movement in response to the excesses of modernity.”

While the book does offer genuinely useful strategies for individual productivity — I’ve already benefited from using some of them — absolutely NOTHING in it resembles anything like the seeds of a “movement,” if we define that as individuals coming together to achieve a social or political end. It’s almost impressive to watch how athletically Newport has to strive to avoid the blindingly obvious political conclusions of his points. Simone Biles of mental gymnastics.

Consider Newport’s argument for bringing “seasonality” to knowledge work. He suggests that it is “unnatural” for humans to work at a consistent pace day in and day out. And since we don’t have the external structure of literal seasons that structured agricultural work, he thinks we should just impose our own:

What if, for example, you decided to “quiet quit” a single season each year: Maybe July or August, or that distracted period between Thanksgiving and the New Year? You wouldn’t make a big deal about this decision. You would just, for lack of a better word, quietly implement it before returning without fanfare to a more normal pace…An advanced tactic here is to take on a highly visible but low-impact project during this season that you can use to temporarily deflect new work that comes your way.

I find this unbearably depressing. How bleak to create a personal season! I’d say that the number one coolest thing about seasons is that everyone in the same place experiences them together. And the “advanced tactic” of being duplicitous about your own little season — even darker and more alienating. The rhythms of life hit different when you’re producing them for yourself and experiencing them alone. When the Soviet Union staggered people’s weekends in order to keep factories going at all times, people were miserable.. “it is no holiday if you have to have it alone”. What if people put their energy into organizing for federally mandated paid vacation days for everyone instead of figuring out ways to trick their employer/colleagues into not noticing when they are taking their own slow season? Ugh!!!!!!!!

Despite how uninspired I find individual seasonality, I have to concede that it would probably be net-positive for people who have enough autonomy to pull it off. And I guess that’s this book’s whole deal. Useful for individuals who have the freedom to take its advice, soul-crushingly unimaginative as any kind of vision for the future.

[Ramón Nogueras Pérez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es muy interesante la evolución personal que ha tenido este autor. Aunque su línea es consistente (elegir aquello que es importante y eliminar distracciones, desarrollar la concentración y la capacidad de hacer cosas desafiantes), ha pasado de estar mucho más cerca de la productividad por y para señores, fan del libre mercado y todo eso, a ser plenamente consciente de la importancia de los cuidados, la carga mental que recae mucho más sobre las mujeres e, incluso, una crítica al capitalismo actual que te hace un par de veces un Marx tenía razón.

En este libro se centra en criticar el ritmo de trabajo del trabajador intelectual y la falsa definición de productividad en la que vivimos, para desarrollar una serie de sistemas para hacer menos y mejor. No esperaba una defensa del quiet quitting pero aquí está. Un gran libro, aunque quizá podría haber profundizado un poco más, que es por lo que lleva 4* en vez de 5. Muy bien.

[David Steele · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this an awful lot more than I did. It's surprisingly full of padding for such a short book; far too many rambling digressions and anecdotes to illustrate points that were perfectly obvious without them. It's a pity, because I was a big fan of Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. I've noticed that the author is doing the rounds on the Podcast circuit and I think you'd be likely to get everything of value from one of those programmes in quarter of the time.

[Spens (Sphynx Reads) · Rating 2 out of 5]

This could have been a blog post. The principles are sound, but even then, I'm not sure how helpful this book was in suggesting how they should be executed. A lot of the book meanders when it could all just be summarized into "slow down at work and you'll have more quality results and better quality of life."

[Montgomery Bertschy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This could have been an email…

While the ideas in the book are good, they could have been described in a much shorter text, or even a 5-minute discussion. The examples used are also quite weak, but sometimes that is necessary to extend an essay into a full length book.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5. Rounding up to 4. Lots of interesting ideas worth trying with plenty of examples as to why. I’m getting ready to retire, so I found much of the content irrelevant. Perhaps I’ll find it more useful at a later point in my life under different circumstances.

[Victoria Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a very palatable read but I would personally have preferred less stories and more getting to the point.

A helpful approach however and a good reset if you don't know how to unplug from the grind.

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/202...

[Mel (Epic Reading) · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you’ve never read a Cal Newport book before you might find something here to learn from. However, if like me and my work technical book club (whom I read this with) you’ve read a couple of his books, including Deep Work, before then you’re unlikely to find anything new or life changing here.
It’s not that Slow Productivity isn’t interesting; it’s just that for 85% of the average population it’s impossible to even hope for the circumstances described. Almost every example, although intriguing and historically relevant, is about a creative or great thinker finding space to be brilliant. The problem? No one gets paid to do that these days (nor did they back then really). If anything Slow Productivity is a reminder that the people who make many startling pieces of literature, art, poetry, etc. are ones who are rich and don’t worry about the bills. Or those thinkers with brilliant mathematical, social, or political thoughts are those whom have chosen to live very simply (aka cheaply).

It’s tough to imagine a middle class person really finding the space described here. Especially if you have a full-time job, children, or other dependents (like elderly parents). Never mind if you also want to engage in volunteer work or be active in your community. There just aren’t enough hours in the day. Thus, you’d have to be independently wealthy and use the full-time job time to enact these principles; something most of us cannot do. And trust me when I say few employers will buy into the overall ask here. They will agree with some of the principles; but the reality of free-reign on time to slow everything down is just not today’s world.

Now before you say that’s a cop-out; let’s deal with some realities. In the post-Covid first world, many more people (~40%) are one pay check away from homelessness. The next ~40% are 3 months away; and the rest are only safe if they (ironically) sell the home they have to temporarily avoid homelessness. How, in such a scrap by and survive world is anyone supposed to find space to slow their process down? How do you convince an employer that less is more? The answer is, you can’t. Do I think decreasing meetings, nonsense make-work projects, and other busy tasks would be good? Definitely. But that’s not what Newport proposes here. Instead he proposes a widespread sweeping lifestyle change. One I doubt most of his readers would ever be able to make; even if they wanted to.
Plus watch out for when he indicates you should cheat your employers out of time, prioritization control, or other workflow practices. It’s a bit shocking how blunt he is about a few things; and probably the university he works for should look at how he’s really spending his time on the clock…
That said many, many executives should read this and listen to their core experts when it comes to being obsessed with quality, focusing on core infrastructure, and decreasing technical debt; especially software companies (including my own!). But again, it’s a very tough idea to sell.

There might be some tidbits of wisdom here for folks. Certainly the stories about writers, like Tolkien and Austen, are interesting. But as a whole this one can be skipped. Read Deep Work instead. At least most of us can set aside a portion of each day or week to do Deep Work; which goes hand-in-hand with the concepts here in Slow Productivity. I do genuinely think Newport needs to stop reaching too far past his base reader’s average life; and his publisher needs to stop letting him overlap concepts too much.
I don’t think I’ll be reading another Newport book for sometime after this one. It wasn’t worth slowing down my TBR with this non-fiction addition just to come out wondering how much more I could have done with the hours spent reading it.