Episode 187: Slowing Down to Speed Up
What does it mean to bring attention to your current life pace? How might slowing down and truly pausing allow you to bring insights into how you continue to move forward in your business?
In this week's episode we'll explore:
What it means to slow down to speed up
How to create a routine slow down practice to pause and reflect
4 Simple questions to ask yourself when you take a pause
How slowing down can help you take smoother and more sustainable and focused action
How our perception of time shapes our decisions and productivity
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Links Mentioned During the Show:
Transcript:
Hello. Hello. You are listening to episode 187 of the Mindful Productivity Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Steckler. And this episode is truly for you. If you've been feeling overwhelmed or perhaps stalled with the momentum in your life and business this week, we're going to be talking about slowing down to speed up and what that actually looks like in a tangible and practical way. Oftentimes when we feel like we need to get a lot of things done, it can be really easy to want to hustle and race towards the finish line without realizing that doing so can often result in more burnout, more resentment, a poor lack of energy management, and often get us to a finish line that's not exactly where we want it to be in the first place. So in today's episode, we'll talk about both some tangible things you can do and some mindset shifts that can take place so that you can truly slow down to speed up or just slow down to slow down in general. Let's go ahead and get into it.
Welcome to the Mindful Productivity Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Steckler, and this is the place to be to live a more mindful and productive life. If you're ready to turn daily chaos into calm and start your days with intention, then get ready to join me as we dive deep into mindful living and personal productivity. It's time to connect with your true self so you can live the life you want to live. And it all starts now.
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm especially excited to talk about today's topic of slowing down to speed up because I personally am in a stage and just a season in my business where this is truly needed. And I was having a bit of a HeartToHeart with myself as you do the past couple of weeks after running Productivity and Planning Week and doing various launches. And I really realized that there are tons of things that I need to take care of, bigger goals in my business, a lot of things that are happening behind the scenes. And if you're a creative or business owner, then you know that sometimes it can feel extra difficult when you've got behind the scenes projects and things you're working on because no one externally is seeing the work that you're doing, which can make you feel a sense of FOMO or like you're not doing enough. This especially happens when you're doing things like building curriculum. For me, it's revamping parts and lessons of pretty productive life that is getting a makeover soon new notion templates, more in depth step by step tutorials. And as you can imagine, those things take a lot of time and detail and attention.
And so during that time, I'm not as likely to show up on social media, make fun reels, or do a lot of marketing efforts that aren't already automated. This definitely is trying, especially if you're a one person solo team as I currently am in my business. But it also reminded me of the power to give yourself full permission to slow down and do the things that over time, will create the foundations in your life and business so that you can quote, unquote, speed up. And when I say speed up, that doesn't necessarily mean hustling or moving faster. It means moving at a speed that is smooth and precise and well determined. So you're really able to create a flow, so to speak, right? Kind of just like a river that has a lot of smooth rocks that it can flow over, it just becomes that much easier for the stream to flow into the Lake and everything else. So that brings me to a quote I really love. I'm sure you've heard it before. It is slow, is smooth, and smooth is fast. It's a quote that originated with the Navy Seals, I believe. But really, when I think about this quote, I think about the attention to detail, the intention that you're taking, the precision that you're taking, when you are intentional and slow with your movements and your decisions, you then create a gateway to creating a smoother path for yourself.
It reminds me a lot of when it would snow when I was little and my brother and I would take all this time creating these pathways for our sleds to go down. And the first couple of times we would go down this path, it would take quite a while. As you can imagine, we'd pack the snow down with our plastic sleds. And over time, especially if we had snow overnight and there was more of a deep freeze, those paths would ice over and kind of become like a Lough and make it that much easier for us to glide down them. It's very similar to with neural pathways in your brain. If you've ever created a new habit, it can take a while for yourself to kind of for that to register in your brain. The same thing happens to me anytime I move a trash can or bin in my house, especially in my bathroom. I will keep throwing Qtips or face masks or whatever in the same spot. And it's really funny when I realize I've been throwing them on the floor and my trash can is actually now behind me or in a different corner.
So it takes time to create these smooth pathways externally in your brain, in your house. And it's important to realize that when you do slow down, you can really, with precision and care, choose the best way for these pathways to form. Right. So I often think of Mario Kart and how it's really tempting when I play that game to hit the gas as hard as possible and focus on pure speed. Right. And winning versus going a little bit slower to maintain my drift, control, manage turns and aim those turtle shells at my enemies. Right. There are two different strategies, and sometimes one works better than the other. But I find that when I'm a little more mindful of those things, I tend to come out in one of the first three places in the game. So another thing I want to mention that can help you kind of slow down because I think we have to get into this mindset. It can be hard to feel like we can change our pace. There's a fear that if we slow down, we're going to fall behind or all these other people are going to race ahead of us.
Really just take a minute to shift your idea and take yourself out of idea that you're in a quote unquote race and that there's a finish line that you must cross before others. Right? Because everyone and every business is on their own unique path. And just because your classmate finishes their math test ten minutes before you do in third grade doesn't mean that you didn't finish or that you won't. Right? It also doesn't mean that that person got a perfect score or that they're any smarter than you. So just because people are zooming past you doesn't necessarily mean that they're doing things better. And it also doesn't mean that you're in a race or that you need to compete at that speed. That reminder can be so helpful. Also, I think we can all agree that rushing through most things won't make things any more effective or less time consuming. In fact, rushing usually leads to more mistakes, right? Less time to reflect on changes and make those aligned decisions. And at worst, you're ending up in a place that you don't want to be in the first place. I always use the example of the first time I created and selfpublished my very own planner.
I was so excited to get it out into the world that I rushed a lot of the processes, made a lot of mistakes, and ended up having to order many proofs. So there are definitely things that you can do to slow down. It's why I encourage my students to take the full 60 days inside of publish with purpose to really create and cultivate their planner idea and put it out into the world so that we can make sure that everything feels good and aligned before rushing to the published finish line. Now, one thing I think is really interesting is that studying and retaining information works much the same way. So for cramming for a test, for example, the night before for hours and hours at a time really doesn't do our brains any good. In fact, the first 20 minutes or so of studying is actually the optimum amount of studying. And in a wonderful presentation, I will link in the show notes, Marty Labelle talks about how studying for 30 minutes at a time is actually the most important thing that you can do. And then you can recharge for five minutes. So this is very similar for 30 minutes.
But in his video he shows a graph and he walks us through an example of a young woman studying at a University sitting down and telling herself she's going to study for 6 hours straight. And as you can imagine, those 1st 30 minutes, she's really determined and she's doing really well. And if you could see an image of her brain and her retention, you would see that things are going well. But guess what happens after those 30 minutes? Everything starts slumping off and the graph and the chart for her retention and her ability to focus drops drastically almost to merely nothing, to the point where she is forcing herself to highlight information and turn pages and she's really not focused anymore and she's kind of resenting the entire thing. What he then describes is the importance of using our time and our mental capacity in an efficient way. She actually didn't study for 6 hours. She studied for 30 minutes and then spent five and a half hours glued to a seat in a library without getting much done and kind of torturing herself. Whereas if she had studied for 30 minutes and then consistently took at least a five minute break to scroll on her phone, get up and walk around the room in the library or get some water, do something that gave her a little bit of a boost, then she would effectively be able to study for quite a few hours within that time frame and take about 30 to 45 minutes worth of breaks.
So as you can see, she would be increasing her productivity a lot. Now another quote that he said in this presentation is that the moment you start to slide, you're shoveling against the tide, this really, really resonated with me because this applies to so much more than merely studying. But I find this to be really true in my business as well. If I'm recording a podcast like I am now, or creating curriculum or working on something that requires a lot of my mental energy and capacity, if I find myself if I found that I've been sitting in my chair trying to hyper focus through something for hours on end and I suddenly start making tons of mistakes or getting really confused or not remembering the step I just did, it wouldn't make sense for me to continue. But oftentimes we do, and not just in those simple moments, but in general in our business. How many times have you had a really busy week? Maybe you've had several podcast interviews, maybe you've been part of a summit. You've done a launch, whether it's your own or an affiliate launch, or you've created a bunch of content, right?
Or you've done a bunch of new things for the first time, like going live or putting yourself out there or pitching yourself to other blogs or podcasts. If you've been doing those kinds of things for weeks or months on end and you haven't given yourself a proper, quote unquote five minute break from that. If you haven't actually given yourself a weekend, if you haven't actually taken a few days to go do something you love, then at that point you really are shoveling against the tide and it's only a matter of time until you hit that burnout wall and that cycle continues. So really thinking about how you can instead create sustainable momentum in your life and business? How can you work towards your goals in those 30 minutes chunks? Literally when you're doing things, but also in a more broad view, how can you structure your life and your business and the seasons of your projects and your workflows into chunks that are sustainable and make sure that you're scheduling in and making breaks and recharge time a part of your creativity cycle as well? I talk more about this and effective use of your time in episode 126 of the podcast, which is all about one productive hour a day.
It's a really fun look into what would happen if you only had 1 hour a day to be productive and work on your business, and it gives you some ideas for what that could look like and how that can actually help you move ahead. I will link that in the show notes as well. Now, before we go into some tangible ways, some questions that you can ask yourself to actually slow down in your business and what that might look like. I also wanted to briefly call your attention to this Ted talk I watched by Matt Dansico where he talks about our perception of time, which also plays a role in this. He explains that our perception of time is altered and feels longer the more information we are taking in or if something is new to our brains. This is often why driving to a new place can feel a lot longer than the drive back. It's also why projects that are new to you or your business can not only feel longer, but also our perception of how long they might take might be under or overestimated. Both our perception of time and our estimation of time can vary based on these factors.
So when you're thinking of slowing down to speed up, I think it's also important to realize that your version of slow might actually still be pretty fast. So what does it actually mean to actually slow down in your business? I think part of slowing down to speed up means pausing. And so there's a couple of different parts of this, right? If you were driving, you wouldn't just instantly come to a stop. You would have to first apply your brakes and do it in a way that doesn't have your purse slamming into the front seat or have everyone in the car brace themselves as you're slowing down. Right? You want to slow down in a way that's sustainable and then also doesn't take all the tire off of your wheels or all the tread, rather. So pausing in your business means coming to a slow stop. And what are some ways that you Canva do that? I think for me, putting stuff on my calendar, like making time to create rituals or practices at the end of the day, like, here's how we're winding down. And as someone that works from home, this can be something that can be hard to get into the habit of, because a lot of times in the past, that was kind of what my commute served that purpose for.
Even though I hated commuting, it gave me time in the car to kind of just think about the day, get out of my head a little bit, kind of let go of some things, literally scream if I needed to. I had such a long commute back in the day, but now when I'm done working, I am also in the same place in my office that I love to Journal and do some of my favorite hobbies. And I'm in the same house that I live in, 24/7, so it can be harder to kind of create that space in between things. So one thing I've been trying to do is create an end of day work routine where I put on some specific music. I love finding different YouTube playlists. So in the morning, I usually start my workday with some jazz, and I really enjoy that a lot. And in the afternoon, I might want to get a little bit hyped up. So I might listen to more EDM music or some vocal trance or something else, something that just tells my brain, hey, we're not working anymore, right? So doing that, shifting the tone and then also physically changing my environment.
So it's really important for me to actually physically leave my office. And I'll usually come back into my office after dinner if I want to do something fun, like a paint by number or a puzzle or Journal and leaving the room and coming back in, it's kind of like creating a whole new space for myself. I also have a designated place where my computer is, so that's where I work. And then I actually have another standing desk that I recently moved over to my window. And that is where it is like, well, right now it's very messy with a ton of stuff on top of it. But that is where ideally, right, it's cleared off. It's ready to go for me to Journal or puzzle. And there's no computer in front of me, so I'm not tempted to think about work. So that's one thing you can do to pause. Other things can be actually planning time, right, to take pauses. So going on walks, going on a drive to a state park in your area, or doing things that really give you time to pause. Because I'll tell you, if you try to force the slowing down in your business, it's going to be hard.
I think we have to kind of be in that mindset where our parasympathetic nervous system is calmed down. So doing things like the four, seven, eight breathing exercise, moving our body, stretching, drinking some water, really taking time to calm ourselves down. Maybe that's listening to a meditation or an ASMR video on YouTube, get yourself into that place so that you truly do feel like you're taking a pause. And when you do find yourself in that pause, this is where the slowing down begins. And when you're in this place, this is where you can actually ask yourself these very simple questions that if you're speeding through life and your business right now, you probably think you have a good idea of, but how often are we actually taking time to answer these? And here, there's four of them. We'll go through them. Now. The first one is what needs to be done? And when. If you're like me, you Canva get really excited about a project and go and kind of just take action on everything without really giving yourself a timeline or milestone metrics to track. Like where do I need to be and when with this project so that I hit our deadline and we meet our objectives.
So really sitting down to ask yourself what needs to be done and when. And this can apply to anything as well in your life. If you're someone that manages the household or the cleaning, this is something I do. I feel like I'm doing everything in my life right now and I feel it coming. I know other business owners are always telling me, Sarah, this is not sustainable and I feel the shift coming. So eventually there'll be people I hire and delegate to for other things outside of my business as well. But what needs to be done and when? So when ideally, are the sheets getting changed on the bed? When are things getting vacuumed? How often is the kitchen getting cleaned or the bathroom getting cleaned? These are things for me, especially with the bathroom can go and go and go and go until I'm like, oh my gosh, who has been in here? This is disgusting. But if you have an idea of when things need to get done and why and when, then that's going to really help. You kind of schedule those things out and you can create those recurring tasks in your calendar in your project management system.
For me, it's in motion, really reminding myself, like, oh, it's Thursday, here's what happens on Thursday. And the same applies for your projects in your business. So it's great that you're starting a podcast or building a course or launching your business. But when did you ask yourself what needs to get done and when? Give yourself those due dates. Due and due dates do. When are they absolutely due and when are you going to do them. The next question to consider is what does your good, better and best look like? So this is both for goals and for day to day operations. But when I say good, better, best, a lot of times I'll use this for launches. Like, here's how many students I'd love to see in pretty productive life that we're currently working on launching right now. Here's a better number, and here's the best. Like, this would blow me away if we had this many people enroll. You can create these for all different kinds of things in your life, and some of them are going to be actual metrics with numbers, and others will be maybe feelings. Or sometimes this can be helpful to look at if you're going into a situation or there's some conflict resolution with a family member or something.
What would be a good outcome? What would be a better outcome? And what would be the best outcome? Right. And sometimes it's also important to look at worst case. Like, what is the worst case thing? On a recent episode of this Is US. Don't worry, I won't spoil anything. Beth and Randall were discussing what could have been the worst case scenario with something that was going on in the family, and they spent time listing off the worst case scenarios, and I actually thought that was kind of a fun practice because then you're a little bit more prepared for what possibly could go wrong. I don't think you'd want to stay in that headspace for too long, but identifying your worst you're good, you're better, your best can help you kind of understand, give yourself a better idea of what you're working toward, and that there's going to be a variety of outcomes and that you can't always control those. Right. But here's what those could look like. So set these not only for your goals, but also for your daily operations. This could also be something that you do if you look at your to do list or your focus project for your current day or week ahead, what are the good, better, and best outcomes of what you want to be working on?
The third question is what rules may you be following that aren't actually necessary? A big one that I often come back to is, do I need to podcast every single week? It is not uncommon for me anymore after this is now episode 187 for me to sometimes have to take a week off unplanned or to just decide not to podcast one week. I used to really freak out about this, and you can go back and listen to me in the beginning of my podcast stress how important it is to be consistent. And while I think that that does hold truth, it's also not the end of the world if you take a break from something. So are there unnecessary rules that you're following? Ask yourself where you heard about these rules in the first place, whether it's how often you should post on social media or maybe that you think that you have to go live during your launches in order to make sales. Are all those things necessary? And are they all true? Take some time every now and then to ask yourself this question and then is there anything you're spending time on that isn't actually moving the needle in your life and business?
Is there something that you're doing that's taking up a lot of your time that might not actually be producing revenue or visibility or growth, or might not even feel that good? I know for me, I still struggle with how much to be on social media. Is Instagram still the platform I want to be on and spend all my time on? Sometimes I'll get in these creativity spurts where I'll create a bunch of TikToks and then I don't really see that platform grow a whole lot. And then I go, well, how many people have actually benefited or found a planner or enrolled in a course from the Tik Tok videos that you've done and there's been a couple, but. Right, like what's the ROI on that for you? Are there things that you're spending a lot of time on where maybe it's better to not and shift where you're spending your energy. So with that being said, what can slowing down to speed up look like in your business after you ask yourself some of these questions? Well, it could be stepping back from frequent social media posts and instead taking time to write maybe one longer powerful SEO researched blog post that can help you generate more longterm traffic.
Or maybe you're using Pinterest to drive traffic. You could be spending two to 3 hours of intentional time slowing down and really planning out your social media content ahead of time versus trying to figure out what to post day to day on the fly. Slowing down in your business could also be setting stronger boundaries. Right. To better manage your creative energy and nourish your wellbeing. And the biggest one is really taking time to slow down to plan out your current or next focus project, which is essentially what's your work sprint right now. What are you focusing on? Because I think sometimes our creativity can get us going in a lot of powerful ways and we can start a project. Maybe it's building a sales page, for example, and you're super pumped and you're having fun getting all the graphics and you've got most of the ideas down for your copy and you're kind of flying through it and then you hit a wall and you're not really sure which step to take next. And you've used up all your energy because you've been so excited. But then you not only don't have motivation or know what to do next, but then you also just really don't want to and you feel kind of flustered.
Right? So if you take ahead of time to map out what does come next, then you would have a game plan that you could move forward on and know that you're working towards the end result. Slowing down to speed up in your life can also be saying yes to fewer plans or commitments. So how often are you saying yes to everything? Right. And I think the biggest part of that really is like letting go of the guilt around that, which is easier said than done. But say yes to yourself and really get clear on what feels like a good yes for other people in your life and other things. Slowing down in your life could also be getting clear on what your life goals and dreams are apart from societal pressures and those around you. This is something every chapter of my life, every decade so far, I've noticed I really have to touch base with because sometimes I find myself working for something and I go, Is that actually my goal? Is that actually my goal? To want to have a huge house someday with a big mortgage, or do I want to work towards something different where maybe we're living in a smaller home and maybe we have land and maybe we're out in the boonies somewhere?
I don't know. Right. These are all things to consider. And slowing down can also be literally taking time to pause and slow down. Right. Like I mentioned before, taking walks in Nature Journaling, taking some naps. Right. Taking time when you do your routine things. So when you're brushing your teeth, be all there. Try to brush your teeth. Try to really notice what you're doing. I did this the other night, and I was really amazed at how you brush your teeth every day. Right. Hopefully twice. And as I was brushing my teeth, I really took time to be in the moment. And I was like, oh, wow, just really thinking about this is silly. But I was thinking about every single molar in the back of my teeth, and I was thinking about my gums. And then I found myself being like, oh, I'm so thankful for my teeth. I'm so glad they're here, and I'm so glad I know how to take care of them and that I have them and I can chew food. Right. And it just brought me into this very present moment. And I think there's so many things we do in a routine way that we forget what we're actually doing.
And so slowing down can also mean really evaluating your home environment. How often do you have a decoration or maybe a potted plant or something in the corner of your room but you kind of stopped seeing it? I went to go visit my mom the other day over the weekend, and she had this really cool wooden art piece thing that was, like at the entrance in her door. And I go, wow, that's amazing. When did you get that and she left and she said that's literally been in my house for, like 15 years. It just used to be over in that corner and it was like, oh, yeah, you're right. But I got so used to seeing it in that one specific place that when I saw it somewhere new it completely registered as something that I was actually seeing in that new space. So even taking time every month to rearrange something in your office or in your home as simple as moving a plant or a piece of art to a different place in your home could make a difference. So I would love to know what will slowing down to speed up look like for you?
How will you quote, unquote smooth your life so that you can create more flow and ease? And what are some of the things that you may need to tell yourself in order to take this time to slow down because slowing down over time really will help you build momentum but it can be hard to get ourselves to do that. If you enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you would share this with someone that's close to you, someone that you think could hear this message today and if you're interested in learning more about what it could look like to slow down to speed up in your business by getting the back end of your business super organized, then make sure you head on over mindful productivity podcast and sign up for my free OnDemand Notion training where I walk you through how to set up a simple life dashboard for your life and business complete with a simple task management system that will really give you the foundational first step to getting organized in your business so that you can slow down and make those important plans. I will link that in the show notes below as well.
Thank you, as always, so much for listening very excited for our episode next week. Have an amazing guest coming onto the show and as always, I'll be back every Monday with a new episode. Thanks so much for listening and have a great week ahead.
