Six Ways to Slow Down Smart

Can you remember back, say, just 12 months ago, when the "workday" extended well into the evening? When 24-7 wasn't a state of mind, but a literal description of the pace at which you and your colleagues operated? When every business plan proclaimed its commitment to "get big fast" -- and when 100% annual growth seemed as natural as 60-day product cycles?

The times, they are a-changin.' Anyone who says they're as busy today as they were a year ago is either lying or filling their days with busy work. Any company that expects to grow at a 100% annual clip is deluding itself (unless, perhaps, it's in the bankruptcy business). Put simply, the business world is slower than it was a year ago -- which can be a pretty tough adjustment for people accustomed to running in fast company.

Our advice? Recognize that slowing down is an opportunity, not a punishment -- a chance to recharge your batteries, learn new skills, tend to long-overlooked problems, and mend strained relationships. Grab a cup of decaf and read through this advice on how to slow down smart.

David Allen

President and founder
David Allen & Co
Ojai, California

When business slows down, smart people get smarter. They get focused, and they get sane again. Now is the time to handle all the stuff that you swear you won't have time to do when things heat up later. In other words, you've got to operate under the assumption that there is a business cycle.

Step one is simple: Survive. Stop obsessing over the sky-is-falling doom and gloom. Get a grip. The only way to relax is to deal with what your attention is wrapped around. So address the urgent stuff. More to the point, if you're stressed out, overwhelmed, upset, and reactive, you won't be able to focus. And focus is the key to productivity.

Relaxed? Now tie up loose ends on less-urgent matters. Everybody has a big backlog of to-do items. Shake out that list and go after the most strategic items -- which ones take the least amount of effort? Is there anything you'll have to do at some point anyway? Now is the time to renegotiate agreements with yourself and other people.

Finally, grow yourself to get ready for the next roll. Like it or not, we usually wait until crunch time to make some of the good decisions in our lives. But a sluggish period is an opportunity to lift up from the runway and get altitude. At 30,000 feet up, learn new skills. Take a class. Read that book you've been dying to read. If nothing else, learn how to type faster. At 40,000 feet, become a better mentor. At 50,000 feet, take your key partners in work and in life and think hard about what matters -- and what doesn't matter. What game are you playing?

The economic downturn is forcing a strategic rethink of personal productivity. This is training season. And when you get busy again, you will work on a whole different level -- if you train now. In boom times, people go too fast for their own good, and they constantly let things slip. But you can't make excuses -- not anymore.

David Allen (david@davidco.com) has spent 20 years helping busy people maximize their personal productivity. As founder of David Allen & Co, a consulting group, and cofounder of Actioneer Inc, a software company that specializes in timesaving tools, Allen has coached hundreds of top executives at blue-chip companies. His online newsletter, "David Allen's Productivity Principles," reports more than 18,000 subscribers. Allen is the author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity (Viking, 2001).

Ann Bancroft

Explorer and lecturer
yourexpedition
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Slowing down comes naturally when you're hauling a 250-pound sled across Antarctica. From the beginning of our trek, Liv and I were behind schedule by about 12 days. We needed to cross the continent within 100 days, before the winter set in. Pacing was critical; we were always tempted to go faster. And when the wind was right and the conditions safe, we prepared the sails and glided across the ice to make up for lost mileage. Sailing, we could achieve up to 70 miles in a day. Pulling, we could cover 12 miles, at best. We constantly had to rethink our strategy, depending on what card Mother Nature dealt us that day. And the slow days were the most critical days; they were our recouping days. Here's how we survived the long haul.

Take teamwork to the extreme. It's critical to have the right partner and the right rhythm. Liv and I constantly changed roles, depending on the day and our strength. Every hour, we took a 10-minute break from pulling, replenished our supplies, and changed positions so that one person wasn't always leading. On trips like this, you strive to be equal all the time. But the reality is, you're going to have down days, even in the most severe climate.