Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout

TLDR: “A re-hash of everything else he’s written. Comfort food, basically.”

Book review by Deane Barker • • tags: productivity, self-help, economics, business, history •
An image of the cover of the book "Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout"

I’ll basically read anything Cal Newport writes. After So Good They Can’t Ignore You and Deep Work, I was just hooked on the dream he offers – deep work, without interruption, toward tangible, consistent results.

Mind you, it’s a dream I’ve never quite been able to reach, but I keep reaching for it.

Honestly, this book doesn’t offer much new information. Newport boils productivity down to three things:

  1. Do less
  2. Work at a natural pace
  3. Obsess over quality

There’s not much here that’s not wildly obvious, or hasn’t been covered in Newport’s other books.

But still, there’s just something encouragingly aspirational about it all. It’s lifecycle porn – a dream of something we might be able to attain someday, and that we take comfort in knowing is out there somewhere.

Book Data

Author
Cal Newport
Year
Pages
256
Acquired
Open Library
OL36996011W
↑ Outbound link to – Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World June 16, 2018

Deals in the generalities of working deeply, without distraction. It spends a lot of time trying to prove the value, which I didn’t think was necessary. And it seemed short on details or concrete plans. It had four principles, which were valuable, but I looked at the book more as motivation or…

↑ Outbound link to – So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love April 13, 2015

Absolutely brilliant book that anyone in their 20s or who is just starting out their career should read. It lays waste to the idea that we need to “pursue our passion,” and instead promotes the idea that we need to ravenously acquire skill and either (1) find passion through the expression of that…