Push notifications, pinging smartphones, p-p-p-pressing deadlines. If you think it’s time to slow things down, you’re not the only one. It wasn’t one thing in particular that made me take up slowness for a month. It was an avalanche of things: the cellphone that never stopped beeping, the friends I saw only on Facebook, the daily pentathlon from our son’s school to keyboard lesson to play rehearsal to fast- food place to bed. Whatever happened to undivided attention? Staying and chatting? Or, better yet, doing nothing? The numbed-out hare in me really wanted to play tortoise awhile. Scrambling around the house one afternoon, I knew it was time. I was slammed with deadlines and running to get to an appointment when, in short order, I tripped over my computer cord, snapped at my wife, Ruth, for losing the car keys (they were in my pocket, naturally), and argued with our plumber for charging $75 for a repair I could have done for $5—if only I’d had the time. It wasn’t until our 8-year-old, Sebastian, appeared at my side with a shoebox rattling with birthday money (“I can pay, Daddy,” he said gravely) that I realized I was being a stressed-out jerk. I apologized, paid in full, and vowed on the spot to ease up on my go-go-go-go-go approach to life. Somewhere beyond the bottomless to-do list in my head was a soft-focus visual of the sort of experience I was craving. Rosy-cheeked from an exhilarating stroll, I sat down at a long table with friends and loved ones, clinking glasses as course after farm-fresh course arrived to jubilant “aaahs.” And this was just lunch. Unfortunately, the message today is to speed up or get steamrollered. Taking the afternoon off to play Scrabble with the family? Try explaining that to the boss. I couldn’t afford to ditch the rat race, but what about making more time to enjoy the cheese? Ruth and I discussed adding meditation to our morning routine, and maybe tai chi, and perhaps walking places instead of driving. I tensed up just thinking about all that planning. Instead, we decided to put the brakes on everything for a while. For 30 days—a month I dubbed “Slowvember”—we would focus on doing things well rather than fast, on making human connections instead of electronic ones, and on getting more out of life by doing much, much less. In all our endeavors, the Hochman family would abide by the following S-L-O-W principles: S was for “Savor,” the idea being to truly appreciate the passing hours and minutes rather than just count them. Instead of freaking out when Sebastian splashed water all over the bathroom floor that first night, I imagined myself looking back on the scene 10 years in the future. It’s a trick social scientists call “reframing,” and it instantly made Sebastian’s drippy bubble-bath beard not just entertaining but heart-achingly poignant. L was “Listen to your inner clock.” In a world of fast talkers, fast drivers, and fast tempers, it’s essential to maintain your own ideal speed. Some moments demand quick action and thinking. Most don’t. When I caught my mind racing or my foot pushing too hard on the gas pedal, I slowed myself by silently reciting the alphabet backward. Ruth began taking a one-thing-at-a-time approach instead of making dinner and watching TV and talking on the phone and checking Sebastian’s homework at the same time. O—“Others before technology”—became my personal Mount Everest. No texting under the dinner table, no checking email at night or before breakfast, no TV when we could be talking, and, horror of horrors, no Facebook or Twitter, period. Those time sucks were draining more precious time than I cared to admit, and toggling between real-life tasks and silly updates was causing productivity losses economists refer to as “switching costs.” Many of us are losing, apparently. During May 2011, Americans spent a combined total of 53.5 billion minutes on Facebook alone, according to Nielsen. The key word here being “alone.” W was the ultimate test of every activity and experience: “Will it matter a year from now?” This not only made me feel better about little annoyances (“Have a nice day, Mr. Telemarketer!”) and bigger ones, like when my hard drive crashed during week two, it also helped sharpen decision-making. My father suffers from Parkinson’s disease, a type of slowness he never would have elected. One day, when he pointed to a newspaper ad for a visiting Cirque du Soleil show and said, “It’d be nice to see this with you and Sebastian,” my quick reaction was, “Oh, boy, this is going to be complicated and expensive with an 8-year-old and a wheelchair in tow.” My slower, wiser conclusion as I picked up the phone to order tickets: “Of course this will matter a year from now.” As people caught wind of our experiment, reactions ranged from bug-eyed, take-me-with-you envy to biting contempt. “Yeah, I’d slow down, too, if I could afford it,” one friend sniffed, even after I explained that my work had become more efficient with fewer distractions. Plus, we were saving money by cooking at home more, eating from our garden, and playing board games or reading library books on nights we might have gone to the movies. Spend Nothing Day For 24 hours, give yourself permission to not consume. Stated as a family mission, it brings to mind how buying dominates our life. “Throughout the day, it’s coffee here, toothpaste there, gasoline. A conscious group effort to not consume is freeing. What’s surprising is we spend when we don’t need to. When we say we’re out of groceries we can usually still go for days eating through the pantry.” Making Eye Contact The simple act of a gentle touch or making eye contact can have huge positive impact on your connections within your family. “When you go through the course of a regular day, everyone’s so busy you sometimes don’t even look at each other,” says Noll. Just taking that few extra seconds to stand face to face or talk about homework, perhaps with a hand on your little one’s shoulder, “creates a moment that’s too important to neglect.” Go Outside and Play “A little fresh air and time outside pulls you away from the many distractions inside,” Noll says. In a yard, park, or other big open space, “there’s more tolerance for noise and loud voices, and you tend to feel a little more present. Lead the way with your actions. Go outside, and your kids are bound to follow.”
Posted on: Mon, 17 Jun 2013 17:18:49 +0000
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