Slow Technology: Better Productivity through Slowing Down?

Slow technology to me is technology that is slow in the moment, but increases productivity in the long term, as in the slow process and the slowing down, makes you focus and creates more insightful outcomes. And let’s you create more meaningful and more Deep Work.

It’s also why Uni-taskers are gaining traction again: they focus on one thing only, making us more productive with fewer distractions.

But why are we, or should we, slow down nowadays when we can go at super-fast speed?

Current tech tries to reduce fiction and make us faster. Very much the opposite of the fast pace we’re in with the Generative AI era.

Cal Newport argues that the side effects of this are exhaustion, as studies and self-experience show, that AI making you Exhausted as well. We, humans, are not built for such a fast life and so much context switching and information.

Slowing down from a deep dive into Finding Flow:

Slowing down, being more present. As Cal Newport says in his book  Slow Productivity, his main points are:

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

If we apply this to life, we get a Deeper Life. One who is more fulfilled and present. It is about finding the balance between the important and the urgent.

Turning off the phone, without the pressure or the urge to check if someone has messaged you, if you got a like on social media, your brain starts wandering. You start getting ideas and thoughts to ponder. But these don’t start immediately. If you have been distracted, living a fast life, are constantly on the go, and have no time to think about anything, without defined principles to work towards, without clarity, your brain can’t just switch, and be deeply focused. But practicing it, like meditation or yoga, is undoubtedly worth it.

Devices and software slow down, tools that encourage working and living more slowly.

• Uni-taskers: Instead of a phone for music, use an iPhone. Away from Algorithms such as in Spotify. Examples:
  • Distraction-Free Typewriter
  • Amazon Kindle
  • See more at Well Being in Times of Algorithms | ssp.sh (internal) and Boredom is the New Luxury | ssp.sh (internal), and The Time is Changing- Owning Again.
• Dumb Phone
• Use paper instead of technology at all? See Digital vs Paper.
• What else?

• Basecamp and everything 37signals creates
• Obsidian, if Writing Manually, and not invoke with AI generated notes.
  • See Knowledge Management in the Digital Age: From Zettelkasten to Startup Owner | Obsidian Workflow - YouTube (internal)
• NeoVim as a WordProcessor, see configs at wp.ssp.sh
• RSS Readers and Bluesky for avoiding algorithms and just following friends and people
• More?

I’m just at the start

Please reach out if you have valid candidates to list above.

At work, we usually try to be as fast as possible, especially with Generative AI. The ones who are not maxing out their tokens are the ones who lose, right? Very wrong in my opinion.

So how should we work then?

If we look at enterprise companies, these are slowing down by default, no? When first movers and early adopters who are early in the market start to slow down, or have to, as there’s just too much generated by AI, and not verified or reviewed by an actual human.

Others say Slow the f… down. Mario Zechner even says that Slow the f… down. Even as the creator of Pi (Agent Coding), he has a great talk about Building pi in a World of Slop.

He vocalizes his frustration with existing tools that constantly break, and things not working. He gave a great analogy: if you worked in construction and your hammer frequently broke, you would get really angry. Same with the tools for developers these days, agents.

Mario highlights the importance of self-modifying agents for customizing our workflows or the company’s workflow, avoiding OpenClaw on autopilot, which pollutes an open-source repository, which he calls clankers. That’s why he said to slow down development to ensure quality and better integration of agent systems.

• Slow Living
• Slow Productivity
• A Good Life Might Look Boring
• Slow the f… down: Building pi in a World of Slop - and slow the F… down — Mario Zechner - YouTube
• Having Taste (with AI)

Origin: Read in the title of The Case for “Slow Technology” by Cal Newport