Slow down

Many people are constantly looking for ways to do everything faster.

They are into speed-reading, they listen and watch videos on 2x speed and become emotional and angry if someone is blocking the traffic. They constantly jump to the next thing and they have no time to even look around. They want to consume more content with the least amount of time. They want to get to the future faster.

Have they ever heard of "less is more"?

They'll never have the time to consume all of the world's content anyway. But seems as if they sure are trying.

Who has the time to read books? Fuck that, "I'll just go through the summaries (on 2x speed of course)".

Doing things faster is counterproductive. They may think they get more done, yet in reality, they get less out of the thing.

This is especially true in learning.

If you want to learn a certain topic, it's a good strategy to slow down. Instead of typing the notes on a computer, write them down with a pen. It's not how fast you go through the material but how much time you take to work on it.

If we slow down, our brains are able to better process the data. A constant slow steady stream of information has a lot bigger chance to reach into the long-term memory. Information that's blasted as if from a fire hose, is forgotten.

Which is more meaningful - to read and really take in 10 good books or to listen to the summaries of 1000 books? Who will learn more? Who gets a richer experience?

K.