Embrace slow productivity
Main idea: we should be tasked with less volume of work.<p>And the author suggests that since less volume -&gt; less stress -&gt; higher efficacy, there won&#x27;t actually be a drop in net productivity.<p>He&#x27;s not necessarily wrong, however I can&#x27;t help but think he&#x27;s missing the meta we&#x27;re all playing within: profit is the motive (not human flourishing).<p>It&#x27;s profitable to drastically overwork people, such that you cull the bottom 10% and get fresh blood in the revolving door. While that costs money as opposed to retaining, it makes more to push the other 90%.<p>Several bosses have explicitly told me they intentionally set an unrealistically aggressive delivery date because of the phenomenon of people taking as much as time as they&#x27;re given. So push hard, inevitably fall short, make some cuts at the very end, ship it, profit.<p>This is the behavioral model which has produced so many successful businesses. Imagine &quot;slow productivity&quot; in a startup? They&#x27;d fail. Now imagine no startups.