Is slow the way to go?
Nourishing Ideas > Philia in the Community > Taking Time

This article originally appeared in the October 2006 issue of Ode Magazine.

According to researchers at the University of California at Irvine, the average office worker only focuses for an average of three minutes at a time between all the interruptions from emails, telephone calls, text messages, automated computer messages and chatty colleagues. As a result, American workers lose more than two hours a day, which adds up to $588 billion U.S. a year.

New Scientist (June 24, 2006) concludes that the technology that is supposed to make our lives more efficient is having the opposite effect. The magazine offers solutions like making sure you have a clock you can glance at when someone disrupts your work and sawing two centimeters (an inch) off the extra chair in your office so visitors feel uncomfortable and leave quickly.

But some people looking at the issue from a deeper perspective argue that speed is overrated at work and everywhere else in our lives. One of them is Londoner Rohan Gunatillak, who says slow is often more efficient and usually more fun than fast, and to prove his point has developed a website called Slow London.  Tips for "slow dummies": Don't set your alarm; go lie on the grass somewhere; don't skip steps when climbing the stairs; dawdle without feeling guilty. In London, every middle Wednesday of the month is now a "slowinthecity" day.

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