Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is that being productive doesn't always look productive. Good
Speaker 1: ideas take time, and true productivity is measured over the
Speaker 1: long haul, but often achieving a lot in the long
Speaker 1: haul doesn't mean filling every minute. Today's tip comes partly
Speaker 1: from Cal Newport's new book, Slow Productivity. In this book,
Speaker 1: Cal talks about how to achieve great things without burnout.
Speaker 1: He opens Slow Productivity with a tale of someone who
Speaker 1: is important to me, Professor John McPhee of Princeton. Many
Speaker 1: years ago, oh I took mcfee's famous nonfiction writing class.
Speaker 1: I learned a lot from his discussions of his own
Speaker 1: life as a working writer. One of mcfee's most famous
Speaker 1: stories is about the Pine Barrens in New Jersey. After
Speaker 1: compiling all his notes from trapsing around the forest, he
Speaker 1: had some fairly serious writer's block, so we wound up
Speaker 1: laying on a picnic table day after day for about
Speaker 1: two weeks. Finally, he realized that much of his reporting
Speaker 1: could come back to one central character who could form
Speaker 1: the spine of what became a long new Yorker piece.
Speaker 1: Cal notes that if you looked at McFee during those
Speaker 1: two weeks spending his working hours lying there seemingly doing nothing,
Speaker 1: you would not have considered him to be terribly productive.
Speaker 1: But that would be a mistake. McPhee has been incredibly productive.
Speaker 1: He's written around thirty books over his lifetime, including one
Speaker 1: that won the Pulitzer Prize, in addition to teaching undergraduate
Speaker 1: writing for decades. To produce his best work, McPhee needed
Speaker 1: time and space to think. Fortunately, he gave himself that space,
Speaker 1: and over the decades, lots of good work followed. So
Speaker 1: what can the rest of us take from this? One
Speaker 1: of the key realizations Cal tells us is that sometimes
Speaker 1: good ideas take time. Yes we have deadlines. Yes, sometimes
Speaker 1: you just have to move forward with something that isn't perfect.
Speaker 1: Nothing is ever perfect, so if you are waiting for perfection,
Speaker 1: you will never do anything. But it is okay to
Speaker 1: sit with an idea for a while and think of
Speaker 1: it and not necessarily go with the first thing. Maybe
Speaker 1: the first thing can be incorporated into your later idea.
Speaker 1: It is a stepping stone for getting there, but maybe
Speaker 1: it is not it. See how it feels when you
Speaker 1: realize that good ideas take time. That means you need
Speaker 1: to give yourself time, and that means being okay with
Speaker 1: not doing something that looks productive every single minute. Yes,
Speaker 1: you've got emails. You could set up some more meetings,
Speaker 1: or you could sit there, go outside, walk around, think,
Speaker 1: talk to some colleagues about ideas. Even if it just
Speaker 1: looks like you are hanging out in the office kitchen.
Speaker 1: You might not come up with something brilliant the first time.
Speaker 1: In fact, you probably won't or the second time or
Speaker 1: a third time. But eventually, and when it comes to
Speaker 1: executing on those good ideas, even a little bit does
Speaker 1: add up. So just keep doing a little bit. Maybe
Speaker 1: it doesn't always look productive, but that's okay. Real productivity
Speaker 1: doesn't always look productive in the moment, but good ideas
Speaker 1: take time, So embrace this slow productivity as cal calls it.
Speaker 1: Over the long haul, it will be okay, and you'll
Speaker 1: probably be happier in the meantime. This is Laura. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening, and here's to making the most of our time.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to before breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
Speaker 1: or feedback, you can reach me at Laura Urah at
Speaker 1: Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.