I listen to some small business and entrepreneur podcasts. One of the phrases I frequently hear is “slow down to speed up.”
I’ll be honest, I typically hear that right before the host explains why they fought that idea when they first heard it, before having to learn it the hard way. And by “hard way,” I mean by repeated painful experience. Anyway, I’ll get back on topic.
Slowing down to speed up also applies to writing. I used to wonder why there were so many different types of notebooks and stationery. For that matter, why were there so many different types of accounting ledger books?
In both cases, writing something down and then rewriting it somewhere else in a different way helps focus the mind.
For writing, I’ve seen guidelines which say there is a creative mode which runs fast and often a bit too free, then there is the editing mode. These are different parts of the brain, and trying to switch in and out of editing mode while ostensibly being in creating mode doesn’t work that well.
I’ve tried that with writing and it does work. I’m still not fully in the habit. But each time I get a little bit better are remembering to let it flow first and then go back and correct later.
I’m also finding it helps to do that with money. I don’t write down every cent of every transaction, but I’m starting to create a list of regular expenses, pulling the information from multiple other places it’s recorded. And it is helping me focus on what I want to keep and what I’m fine letting go.
Why am I writing this on a blog about making technology work for you?
Technology has created so many time-saving services, it’s erased the friction which used to exist. So we all, myself included, want to let the apps and programs and whatever do it all for us. When we do that, we convince ourselves we’re going faster and faster. But we’re planning and considering less and less.
A re-read and rewriting of a good idea is better than writing it hurriedly fifteen times. And it will be fifteen times because we’re moving so fast we forgot what we already wrote.
An inventory and accounting of what classes and guides and books have already been purchased is better than purchasing more variations of the same thing. But it’s faster and feels faster to just buy more of what has already been purchases.
Slowing down to go faster is a real thing.