Learn. To. Slow. Down
Speed has long been equated with success. But with the acceleration of our lives comes mental overload and stress, made even worse by social networks that fuel our addiction to instant gratification. The real emergency is for us to slow down.
Let’s renew our perspective on time by observing the models of slowness that nature has to offer: trees patiently growing to be centuries old, spiders lurking in their webs as long as necessary to be sure to catch their prey, plants going dormant in the winter. Let’s make time silence, which benefits decision-making.
- Slowing down improves our attention.
The same way as ultra-focused athletes perform better, our attention and our ability to remain focused on a task, are better if we prevent interruptions and distractions.
- Slowing down develops creativity.
Mental wandering allows ideas to incubate and helps new solutions to old problems emerge.
- Slowing down encourages intuition.
A key skill, intuition can be nurtured and welcomed with the right rhythm.
So it’s time for companies to allow daydreaming and set up “think weeks” like Bill Gates did!
To go further
“Et si le monde du vivant nous apprenait à ralentir?”
by Emmanuelle Joseph-Dailly (Harvard Business Review France, 8 October 2021).
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