Tag: slow productivity

Slow Productivity in School, Part 2: Do Fewer Things

In my last article we discussed the problem of pseudo-productivity in school. Popularly called busywork, this pseudo-productivity of the factory model of education presents a fairly straightforward analogy to the pseudo-productivity of the office. In his book Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout, Cal Newport diagnosed the problem of our crazy busy work culture: “The relentless overload that’s wearing us down is generated by a belief that ‘good’ work requires increasing busyness–faster responses to email and chats, more meetings, more tasks, more hours” (7). Then he proposed an altogether different approach to work, characterized by slowness rather

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Slow Productivity in School, Part 1: The Problem of Pseudo-Productivity

Classical educators can often be found touting the Latin phrase multum, non multa, in favor of various revolutionary proposals to adopt quality over quantity, depth over breadth, much over many things. (See for instance this article on Memoria Press by Andrew Campbell, or Christopher Perron’s lecture on Classical Academic Press.) The phrase comes from a letter of Pliny the Younger (7.9.15) and originally refers to his advice for a student to read much, not many things. This could be taken to mean that he read the right books or the best books over and over again rather than simply reading

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