The Go Slow Life and Cultivating a High-Quality Life

One of my favorite authors, Cal Newport, just came out with a new podcast, Deep Questions with Cal Newport.  This was super exciting to me because so much of what Newport writes in his books has incredible value, and he has zero social media presence, so I'm always in a state of wanting to hear more about what he has to say on the topics of productivity, organization, creating a niche for yourself in a professional sense.  I do get my fix via his newsletter and blog posts which come out once a week or so. 

Note: Newport's lack of a social media presence is completely by design. He is intrinsically very wary of social media's intentional hijacking of our human psychological vulnerabilities for the purpose of increasing clicks, likes, and ultimate eyes-on-screen time.  

The value that I gained from reading Newport's work are the methods and concepts that lead toward living a High-Quality Life. There are other authors whose work I've integrated as well (see my Reference page for links to other books that have enhanced my personal Go Slow Life) but I keep coming back to Newport's work.

On a recent podcast episode (Episode 1 or 2) he talks about being choosy about how you spend your time on social media and news platforms, if at all, for the psychological reasons identified above.  Spending time scrolling through newsfeeds often turns into a passive activity, and can consume more time that one would otherwise choose to spend differently.  The crux of living a High-Quality Life is intentionality.

Intentionality is what gives us a sense of purpose and control through choosing our daily activities.  Intentionality is what allows us to spend time on the things that are most important to us, not to someone else.  This is at the core of The Go Slow Life.  

When you are moving quickly through tasks, often times, that means you are moving from a space of auto-pilot or haste.  This cannot be done with purpose.  This is not the same as moving quickly in the sense of running, cycling, dancing or playing an instrument.  This is going from one task to the next without great care and consideration of how and in what context you will complete the next task.  

Full disclosure:  This is not easy.  I spend a great deal of time on auto-pilot with my brain buzzing swirling lists of to-dos in the background.  It's a miserable existence!  Cultivating an intentional life is hard.  It is difficult work.  It will likely bother other people.  But the creation and cultivation of choosing intentional living yields a High-Quality Life.  Here are some examples: 

Health/Nutrition

- Choosing foods that both taste good and provide nutrients which are essential to a healthy body.  This often takes more time to both prepare the food and learn the cooking techniques over time. 

- Eating food in a slow, undisturbed, mindful manner is scientifically proven to reduce overall consumption and increase overall enjoyment of the meal

Media

- Choosing news sources that limit bias and provide factual information. This is a great visual chart of different news outlets and how they lean progressive or conservative and the relative reliability of their sources.  I read The Washington Post and The New York Times for my news and I can see where I am fairly centrist and lean slightly liberal.  (Perhaps I should, for good order, read The Wall Street Journal or The Christian Science Monitor for some equally-reliable and slightly conservative perspective)

- Limiting news consumption to one 15 to 30 minute block per day, in a non-digital version is best if possible.

Balance

- Working in a focused and deliberate way while in the work phase of your day.  Stepping away from your work at the end of the work phase.  The modern knowledge worker has no end and no beginning to their work day - emails are checked at home while getting ready for work. Calls come in on the weekends.  Sunday night preparation meetings take place.  Travel bleeds over into leisure time.  This is something that I wholeheartedly reject, but is very hard to maintain in today's culture, particularly with email response time.  (This is even more difficult during the writing of this post which is during COVID-19 pandemic era when the lines between work phase and family care phase of my day is completely overlapped due to stay-at-home orders.)

- Being present with your dependent loved ones (e.g. children, elderly, infirm) while in the family care phase of your day, if you have family members who need direct care as I do.  

- Being present with your non-dependent loved ones when the work and family care obligations are complete for the day. 

- Being choosy about how you spend your leisure time and what percentage of your leisure time is spent on various activities.  Ensuring that your leisure time is not zero percent of your day and making space for activities that bring you joy.

Personal Finance

- Creating and maintaining a family budget every month.  Choosing where and how you spend your money before the money is spent.  Sticking to the budget except for extreme emergencies.

- Paying off debt to regain control of your income instead of sending it out to creditors at each pay day

- Taking care of the foundation of a long-term retirement plan - investing smartly in 401k/IRA.

- Maintaining an emergency fund account of 3-6 months of expenses in a savings account

- Saving up and paying cash for large purchases.  Avoiding impulse buys and sales marketing ploys.

Professional Growth

- Maintaining a Personal Kanban chart or an Eisenhower Matrix to monitor your professional activities and ensure that the most important and urgent activities are getting the top priority.

- Reading books that improve your knowledge and understanding of your field.  

- Attending webinars, conferences and meetings that improve your knowledge and network in your particular field.  Spending time at these in-person events doing high-quality activities, not passively attending as though it is a low-grade vacation from work.  Preparing and speaking at a conference in your field. 

These are some ways to cultivate a High-Quality Life through The Go Slow Life.