Getting Things Done - GTD
Work at a Natural Pace: The Second Principle of Slow Productivity and Its Connection to GTD
AUTHOR: María Sáez
After exploring doing fewer things, Cal Newport’s first principle of Slow Productivity, today we dive into the next one: working at a natural pace. This principle challenges one of the most deeply rooted beliefs in modern work culture: that more hours and constant intensity equal better results.
Newport describes this second principle as follows:
“Don’t rush your most important work. Instead, let it unfold over a sustainable schedule, with variations in intensity, within environments that are conducive to excellence.”
Human beings are not machines. We aren’t designed to maintain a constant, relentless level of intensity day after day, week after week. However, the culture of knowledge work pushes us precisely in that direction.
How did we get here?
To understand why we need to return to a natural work rhythm, Newport takes us on a journey back in time. Imagine our hunter-gatherer ancestors: their day didn’t consist of eight uninterrupted hours of hunting. There were moments of intense effort (chasing prey, gathering fruit in a distant place) followed by long periods by the fire, telling stories, resting. Work was hard when it was time to work, yes, but no one expected you to maintain the same level of intensity from sunrise to sunset.
With the rise of agriculture, this pattern stayed the same, just on a different time scale. Farmers lived to the rhythm of the seasons. Spring meant plowing and planting; exhausting days, getting up before dawn, every minute counted. Then came summer, with its maintenance tasks, a more leisurely pace. And the autumn harvest was frantic again: everything had to be gathered in before the frosts arrived. But then winter brought a natural respite. No one looked down on a farmer for working less in January. It was logical, natural. The seasons set the pace.
The Industrial Revolution disrupted this age-old balance. Suddenly, the pace was set by machines, not the seasons or the natural cycles of the human body. Factories needed to operate constantly and predictably. Workers became, in a sense, extensions of those machines. In such a dehumanized environment, society recognized the need to protect workers. Laws were introduced to limit working hours, guarantee breaks, and establish mandatory vacations.
Nowadays, in the world of knowledge work, we’ve lost all those protections. Newport describes it as the “invisible factory”: a place where there are no clear working hours, where work can creep into every corner of your life. An email at 11 p.m.? Normal. Checking Slack over the weekend? Of course. Thinking about that pending project while trying to have dinner with your family? Inevitable.
As Newport writes, knowledge work became free to “colonize much of our time, from morning to night, weekends and holidays, and everything we could bear, leaving us few options beyond exhaustion, resignation, or neglect when the workload was excessive.”
The irony is brutal: 19th-century factory workers had more protection against incessant work than we do, with our university degrees and ergonomic chairs. And that’s precisely what this second principle of Slow Productivity calls into question.
Why working at a constant intensity is counterproductive
Intuition tells us that more hours of work equals more results. It seems logical: if you work 50 hours, you produce more than if you work 40, right? Well, no. Science has shown that this belief is a dangerous illusion.
Economist John Pencavel, of Stanford University, conducted a fascinating study analyzing data on workers in munitions factories during World War I. In this context, productivity could be measured with absolute precision (units of ammunition produced) and demand was infinite (it was wartime, so every possible unit of ammunition was needed). There were no excuses or confusing factors.
The results were revealing: hourly productivity begins to drop sharply when you exceed 50 hours per week. After 55 hours, the decline is so steep that working more is practically useless. And here’s the most surprising part: those who worked 70 hours per week produced the same, or even less, than those who worked 55 hours. Those extra 15 hours contributed absolutely nothing.
As Pencavel describes, it’s a “highly nonlinear effect.” Adding five hours when you’ve already worked 48 hours has completely different consequences than adding them when you’ve worked 35. It’s not simply a matter of cumulative fatigue; there’s a turning point where cognitive performance plummets.
More recent studies confirmed these findings in knowledge work environments. A study published in the Journal of Occupational Health showed that working more than 40 hours per week is significantly correlated with burnout, and this effect intensifies dramatically when exceeding 60 hours per week. Teams with high levels of burnout show between 18% and 20% less productivity.
From these studies, we can deduct that working incessantly and with constant intensity:
- Distances us from our fundamental nature as beings who need cycles of effort and recovery
- Generates unhappiness and burnout with all its consequences for physical and mental health
- From a purely economic perspective, prevents us from reaching our maximum productive potential
Working at a relentless pace is artificial and unsustainable. Constant rushing isn’t just bad for our health and well-being; it’s also bad for quality and, paradoxically, for real productivity.
How to implement natural rhythm: practical strategies
Newport provides a series of specific strategies for reducing rushes, taking advantage of the seasonal nature of work, and returning to a more human pace of work. The majority of these are easier to implement if you work for yourself than if you work for a company, although there are tricks for carrying them out within a corporate environment.
Here is a brief summary of his proposals, although I recommend reading the book if you want to explore them in greater depth:
- Draw up a five-year plan. Defining a vision over a broad time horizon will help you stay committed to your goals, but it will also give you peace of mind during periods when progress is slower.
- Double your time estimates for projects. Humans are notoriously bad at estimating the time required for cognitive tasks. If you have enough time, your work pace will be more natural.
- Don’t overload your work schedule. Try not to spend more than half of your day in meetings or on calls, and block out the rest of your time for your most important projects.
- Schedule more relaxed periods. Intersperse low-intensity projects with more intense ones to enjoy your most important work without burning out. If possible, include short getaways between major projects.
- Embrace “small seasonality.” You can also vary the intensity of your effort in short periods to work at a more natural pace. Some examples: dedicate one day a week (Mondays?) to deep work, without interruptions; set aside one afternoon a month to go to the movies or do something you enjoy; take a couple of days off after finishing an intense project; work in more intense 6 or 8 week cycles followed by a couple of more relaxed weeks, etc.
- Create a conducive workspace. Environment matters. Your workplace isn’t just a collection of furniture; it can transform your cognitive reality. Adapt it to the nature of your work. If you work from home, find places near your home where you can change your work rhythm.
- Create rituals that signal different modes of work. Go to a café for breakfast before starting a day of deep work, take a walk in the countryside before you start writing, etc.
The connection with GTD
The second principle of Slow Productivity can perfectly complement the GTD methodology. GTD helps you capture and organize everything that competes for your attention, ensuring that nothing is lost and that you focus on what is most important at any given moment. Slow Productivity helps you decide the pace at which you execute those organized actions.
The higher focus horizons of GTD (perspective), purpose, and vision allow you to make long-term plans, which is absolutely necessary in order to take breaks or detours without feeling guilty. Having a clear long-term vision also allows you to schedule the different work rhythms proposed by Newport.
The unique concept of the GTD calendar, a container in which only mandatory actions should be placed, helps you simplify your workday.
GTD already takes into account that not all actions require the same type of energy, and respects your natural energy cycles. If you mark tasks with the energy they require, you can focus on the less demanding ones when you’re in a relaxed state.
The Weekly Review is the perfect time to implement seasonal variations. Did you have a busy week? Maybe the next one should have a slower pace.
The path to meaningful work
As an ancient saying by Lao Tzu, quoted by Newport in his book, goes: “Nature is in no hurry, but everything is accomplished.”
Working at a natural pace doesn’t mean being lazy or lacking ambition. It means recognizing that great achievements are built through the steady accumulation of modest results over time. This is a long journey, and you need rhythm to get through it without burning out.
In the next article, we will explore the third and final principle of Slow Productivity: “obsess over quality”. We will discover how this principle acts as the glue that binds the entire philosophy together and makes it a source of meaning, not just sustainability.
In the meantime, we invite you to think about the following: What’s your natural rhythm? What small seasonal changes could you introduce into your week? What important project needs you to spend more time on it than what you’re currently dedicating?
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