How Slowly Can I Do It?
I wanted a new pace for 2025.
The end of 2024 felt like bulls outside a gate, with me desperately trying to stay calm, focused and on top of my to-do list while messages, notifications and calls flooded in.
I’d drop V at school, race upstairs to my computer, emerge at lunchtime in a huff, and race to collect her, my mind never in the moment.
I grabbed the recurring thought… “How quickly can I get this done?”
Racing through an email reply, “How quickly can I get this done?”
Listening to a business podcast, “How quickly can I get through this so I can listen to the next one?”
Cooking dinner, “How quickly can I get this on the table?”
It sounded helpful. It was feeling awful.
2025 is an experiment. How slowly can I do things?
It started on a road trip over the holidays as I sat stuck in traffic.
“How slowly can I get to the next town?” (instead of freaking out about traffic). The 4 hour trip took maybe 6 minutes longer than usual…
“How slowly can I unpack the bags?”
“How slowly can I get V to fall asleep?”
“How slowly can I chop these vegetables?”
The best part? It all takes pretty much exactly the same amount of time as if I was asking how quickly I could do it.
And now, I feel calm, focused and in the moment of what I’m doing.
