Book Review for Slow Productivity by Cal Newport

Are you a researcher, CEO, writer, or knowledge worker overwhelmed by your job? Knowledge work (thinking for a living) underpins much of today’s workforce. And yet, the pandemic has made it clear that hustling has fractured our attention and ability to do meaningful work for our organizations and for us.

In comes Cal Newport with Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout, who argues for a slower, more meaningful engagement with knowledge work. Newport’s expertise on slower work is deep (pun intended) — he’s a Computer Science professor at Georgetown University. Newport also has 15+ years of professional writing in books and blogs about working better. Newport redefines what success looks like for knowledge professionals. But how does this book stack up to his other work or advice you may get from productivity or self-help gurus?

In this book review of Slow Productivity, I’ll summarize its main takeaways and the book’s potential to transform the work process of knowledge workers.

Overview of the Book and Structure

Newport’s Slow Productivity has three core principles:

1) Do fewer things.

2) Work at a natural pace.

3) Obsess over quality

Each principle is a 50-page mega chapter of actions and evidence, with an interlude about common criticisms of the principle itself.

What I Loved — Newport’s Writing is a Breath of Fresh Air

Most self-help books focus on the author’s firsthand experiences or recycle “the great productivity examples,” like Benjamin Franklin or Richard Feynman. To be clear — Benjamin Franklin is incredible, but I’m bored of him in the self-help genre. Give me more diverse examples!

In Slow Productivity, Newport pushes the self-help genre by incorporating an engaging non-fiction writing style into his book. He draws on diverse professions, age groups, and historical periods, complemented with detailed biographical sketches of peoples’ lives.

This writing style is a massive breath of fresh air — I was absorbed in the stories, googling to dive deeper into Jewel’s backstory. His blurb about the life of scientists to begin Provocation 2 was almost self-indulgent (given that he is a scientist, and so am I). But it was a moment where Newport’s immersive narrative style is the peak of his argumentation.

The best part of the book blends this writing with Newport’s excellent ideas in “Obsess Over Quality.” This superb chapter emphasizes joy in personal achievement, whether a passion project or professional endeavor. This section is interwoven with biographical vignettes of people deeply obsessed with the quality and impact of their work to the detriment of financial gain.

Drawbacks

First, a pragmatic annoyance — while the 50-page mega-chapters reads smoothly, the Table of Contents doesn’t contain references for each action to return to later. I wish the content were annotated for future reference.

Sometimes academic quirks hinder Newport’s writing, and I wish there were a closer copy edit on his prose. I am also a computer scientist, and I sometimes see my academic writing come through in Newport’s writing. Even though I’m used to that writing style, there were several places where 3–4 comma sentence interjections threw off my pacing.

Another limitation is that ideas are redundant with Newport’s recent material in other outlets. Regular readers of Newport’s blogs, his contributions to the New Yorker and the New York Times, or his podcast listeners will find many ideas in Slow Productivity familiar. In contrast, I continue to be inspired to defend my time whenever I read Deep Work. For new readers, the advice will be more groundbreaking than my takeaways.

Finally, the advice in the book could be better defined for either knowledge workers or office workers. Slow Productivity’s target audience is traditional knowledge workers — freelancers, writers and creative types, CEOs, academics, software engineers. In contrast, I found the book to critique general office work. Zoom fatigue is real and email stinks, but is that the real burner to my intellectual impact? The advice in Slow Productivity may not translate to employees whose knowledge is their capital but do other kinds of office work.

In summary, Slow Productivity is an engaging read. It offers valuable insights for knowledge workers seeking more meaning in their work. While the book may not be revolutionary for Newport’s devotees, it’s an enjoyable addition to the self-help, positive productivity, and books on work-life balance. If you’re a freelancer, writer, academic, or CEO who wants to focus on what matters, Slow Productivity is worth your time.

You can buy Slow Productivity at bookshop.org or your local bookseller!

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