Ways to Slow Down

Is it just me, or do people seem to be rushed more than ever this summer? I would have thought that things would be moving at a more languid pace given the macroeconomic slowdown, and indeed my friends who have been laid off from their jobs are indeed forced to move more slowly, since they have nowhere to go. But for the majority of my acquaintances who still have jobs, the microeconomic effect of the recession seems to actually be to speed things up.

Offices are doing more with less, meaning the people left behind are swamped. Some people have had hours or pay reduced and so are working an extra job to try to make up the income. Some companies still have aggressive growth targets in the face of the recession, and so workers are having to press harder to try to make the targets. Whatever the cause, it seems the world is speeding up even more than it had been even a few months ago.

Add pressure of financial setback--whether in reduced salary, or loss of bonus, or the fall in 401k or college fund value--and it can feel like you have to run even faster just to keep up. Speed can be beneficial, of course, but speed also kills. In emotional terms, it is the stress that speed creates that can lead to emotional breakdowns, health problems, and neglected relationships. Dealing with that stress thus becomes a vital skill, on par with the finance, or marketing, or human resources, or programming, or whatever skills you need to excel at your job.

I don't have all the answers for dealing with stress, and different people will find different solutions that work for them. But the main theme of the stress reduction techniques that work for me is this: Slow Down! Here are some ways I do it:

1. Do Less. If job or school pressures have increased, our tendency is to add the new responsibilities to our previous list and try to cram it all into our already-harried lives. If I try to do that, it guarantees mediocrity. So, when I start to feel the stress of too much to do, I prioritize and cut out one or two activities at the bottom of the list. If I'm already down to my core activities, then I look for ways to do them more efficiently, like changing a client meeting from a visit (requiring travel time in addition to meeting time) to a conference call. But realistically, there are always one or two activities that I can cut out without affecting my job or my family.

2. Set priorities. Even after I've culled my activities, my daily to-do list is often long. So I next look at it with a focus on deadlines: what MUST be done by today or tomorrow? I then do those things first, to make sure they get done. Some tasks have very clear deadlines: if I have a client meeting tomorrow, then I know I've got to finish my presentation by the end of the day today. It must be my priority. I like what Merlin Mann has written about priorities: "true priorities are like arms; if you think you have more than one or two, you're either lying or crazy." There are lots of things that are important to me, but on any given day there are very few must-do priorities. If I'm honest about what HAS TO be done today, and do that first, then my stress level goes down.

3. Don't forget to live. For me, that means don't skip meals and breaks. I may not linger over a three course lunch, but I will still leave my desk, walk outside with a sandwich, and take a 20- or 30-minute break from my tasks. Better yet if I can get someone to go with me so that I can have a human conversation, preferably about something other than the task I'm working on. I return from these breaks refreshed and ready to work again. And only very rarely will I not stop at an appropriate time and go home to eat dinner with my family. Again, the interaction with other people, the break from the monotony of a task, the reminder of life outside of work, far from being a waste of time, actually makes my work better. Remember, we are working to live, not living to work. Don't shortchange your life, and your work will be better.

DO LESS is probably not the advice you would expect, but it works wonders for me. What do you do to manage the stress of the modern world?

Understanding the Amish

It turns out the Amish, who outwardly seem so different from the rest of us, may not be so different after all. This article in the Wall Street Journal last week describes the Amish community in northern Indiana that partially joined modern society by taking jobs in the region's RV factories during the boom years in the middle of this decade. The result? For many, an increase in debt; a weakening of the traditional community ties, replaced by a more assertive individualism; and conspicuous consumption. (I would love to see one of the horse-drawn buggies with LED lights--who would have thought there would be a way to "pimp my buggy"?)

I think the article reflects more on mainstream American culture than on Amish culture. Take adults who have been raised outside our culture and drop them in, and what happens? The urge to spend takes hold almost immediately. Spending more then causes selfishness, as the list of wants exceeds the available cash, and so generosity and community-mindedness suffers; plus, now that work is so necessary to earn the money to buy the stuff, time is hoarded for selfish pursuits instead of community pursuits. Finally, the need to show the world this new bargain one has made (trading work for money and stuff) leads to pride and the purchase of "positional goods"--stuff that displays one's new status to others. The process is very clear in the case of the Amish, because they started outside of the culture and were thrown into it. But what about those of us who were raised in it?

It is very, very difficult to break the habits that your cultural upbringing has left you with. We are subject to the same cultural pressures: the focus on material things as a sign of success; the pressure to buy stuff to display our economic status; the push to work harder and longer to be able to afford more of the stuff to impress the people around us. To us this is "normal", and thus very, very hard to break out of. Unlike the Amish, we have no other community to go back to, no community organized under principles of collective living and modest consumption. If we so choose, we have to go it almost alone in living counter to the prevailing ethos. That makes it very, very difficult to adopt a lifestyle that avoids overwrought consumption.