66. The case against hurry
Why the radical notion of taking your time might be the best thing you do this year
Occasionally, I write Substack stories as advice to myself, researching the problems I have yet to personally solve in the hopes that my due diligence might finally convince me to do the thing, to be the person, to solve the puzzle. It’s very much “do as I say, not as I do.”
This particular Substack is no exception.
I am a notorious hurrier with a complicated relationship to pace and urgency. Recently in therapy, I admitted that I am used to an environment in which it is a failure to bring the same topic to a 1:1 with your manager in back-to-back weeks, that you should be solving problems, not rehashing them. My therapist gently told me that the same rules don’t apply in therapy. Phew!
So by writing about it, I hope to learn a thing or two myself.
Moving fast comes up all the time in my day-to-day: I feel compelled to check off to-do items as quickly as possible, to launch programs and initiatives now (yesterday, ideally), and to get stuff done with breathtaking speed. Case in point: I tell clients that we can complete a rebrand project in four weeks before I actually think about what goes into a rebrand project. Another case in point: I am dead-set on completing the purchase of a French castle in three months, despite Shannon’s repeated assertions and reams of evidence that the pace of French real estate is, how do I put it, leisurely.
There are books and apps and philosophical movements around the notion of slowing down, so I know I’m not the only one stuck on the “fast” setting and looking for relief. How did I (we) get into this hurried state? Good question. Let me give you a quick answer. (See? Even my Substacks are hurried.)
I have worked at a lot of startups, and startups celebrate pace because they need to ship features and to acquire customers quickly in order to survive (aka appease their shareholders).
I reported to CEOs who typically wanted things done right away, and I struggled with boundaries.
I am a people pleaser who says yes to lots of things.
I equate moving fast with learning fast, which is my own way of rebranding “hustle culture” to something that sounds more noble.
I fear that if I don’t move fast enough then I will miss out on an opportunity.
These are some of the prevailing feelings behind my hurried mindset. Do these resonate with you? What would you add?
And also: How do you break the cycle?
Like I mentioned, I am still very much in this cycle, but I am learning lots from helpful books and patient friends on how to be more balanced. Here are five stories I’m working to embrace regarding hustle culture, hurriedness, urgency, and pace.
5 reasons not to hurry
1. Creativity requires time
One of the main ingredients in a creative practice is carving out the time and space to be creative, which is difficult for us hustlers because time and space are our natural enemies!
Since the science and research behind time + creativity is sound, and assuming we can actually succeed at carving out time in our day to slow things down—block our calendars, take a walk, put some buffer into a project deadline—then, ironically, the boost in creativity might actually boost our productivity.
Creative thinking leads to innovative solutions, improved problem-solving skills, and fresh perspectives that can streamline your work processes, transform your approaches, and actually end up making you more effective in the long run.
Creativity requires time, and relatedly, hard things also take time.
In my haste to finish stuff, even and especially the big things, I can get pretty down on myself for failing to move along just as quickly as possible, like I’ve got the answers wrong on the test of life or have missed something obvious that everyone knows but me. However, it turns out that if things were super easy, then I probably could breeze through them; it’s logical and acceptable for the harder stuff in life—career decisions, business decisions, big projects, big changes—to take the time they need.
2. Patience is actually a pretty powerful differentiator
Startup founder Allen Pike tells this interesting anecdote on his blog, recounting a magic trick by the magician Teller of Penn & Teller fame:
First, he’d have you pick a card. He would attempt to produce the card, but fail, indicating the card may have travelled elsewhere. He’d then lead you on a short walk to a nearby park, and then be inspired to dig a hole. Buried there, beneath undisturbed grass, was a box. When opened, the box would, somehow, contain the card you’d chosen. An impossible trick.
To create this magical moment, he had to do something you wouldn’t expect: he’d gone out into the park and buried a number of boxes, corresponding to potential cards one might choose. Then, he waited months – until the grass had grown over. Only then could he perform the trick.
Deducing what card you’ve picked is a well-known sleight. But performing a trick where your card is seamlessly buried requires so much advance preparation that it seems impossible.
The justification that Teller gives for the time and patience required for tricks like these is incredibly relevant for the work that us creative marketers might choose to do, too:
Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect.
One of the most successful articles that I ever wrote for Buffer’s blog required that I (gulp) not do anything for 30 days. (We wrote zero posts on the blog for a month to see what would happen to our traffic.) It’s not exactly the same as burying playing cards in the park, but it certainly took me out of my hustle-and-grind mindset and created a little moment of delight and “magic.”
Especially when everyone else is running as fast as they can, being patient with your creative output might allow for some truly differentiated output that feels unique compared to all the hastily made stuff in our feeds and inboxes.
3. Urgency matters a lot less than you might think
As much as it might pain me to acknowledge, far fewer people than I think are waiting on pins and needles for me to launch something. Maybe no one is waiting!
I often build up artificial urgency in my head by setting arbitrary deadlines and then holding myself accountable, despite the deadline being arbitrary and completely self-invented. For instance, at Bonfire we are excited to launch a community for creative marketers. But are thousands of people refreshing our homepage every hour for the big launch announcement? No way! Does the whole world have the same go-live date circled in their Notion calendars as I do? Nope!
When I pause to think about it, the urgency is often a product of my own overthinking, based on the mistaken beliefs I outlined earlier: startups gotta go fast, bosses want stuff done NOW, etc. Donna Farri, author of The Breathing Book, suggests some zoomed-out questions to help give some perspective:
“Is my need to hurry real or imagined? Is this task so important that it is worth losing my peace of mind? And the clincher, Will anyone die as a result of this not getting done today? Question whether hurrying will really help you arrive at your destination.”
Journalist and author Katharine Whitehorn puts it even more directly:
“You can recognize the people who live for others by the haunted look on the faces of the others.”
Sorry to all you others upon whom I’ve foisted my hurry!
4. The goalposts keep moving
Goalposts sit at the back of a football end zone, which is where teams are constantly hustling to arrive at as quickly and frequently as possible. Moving the goalposts, then, is a rather rotten experience! In our knowledge-work world, goalposts could be milestones or achievements or KPIs or targets—basically anything that you’re aiming for.
What happens once you get there? In my experience, there’s often something else to chase next. The theoretical goalposts keep moving so that you’re never in the end zone.
If goalposts aren’t your thing, then there’s also the metaphor of mountains. As you scale one mountain, your view from the top might just reveal that there is an even taller mountain to scale next!
The flip side, of course, is a growth mindset of going after bigger and better things. The trick for me at least has been disassociating this quest for personal improvement from any sort of timeline expectation. I don’t need to build a million-dollar business in 12 months OR ELSE. It’ll take the time it takes. (And maybe I should even re-think how I view success in the meantime.)
5. You might hurry past something really great
“Move fast and break things” may have gotten Facebook pretty far, but you know what actually got broken in the process? The people doing all the moving!
“Boy, I hurried... I hurried for a long time. I'm sorry I did. All the time you're hurrying, you're not really as aware as you should be. You're trying to make things happen instead of just letting it happen.”
These words were spoken by the musician Bob Dylan, who could have just as easily been speaking for me and my fellow knowledge workers in our hurried and harried marketing jobs. One of the obvious risks of hurrying all the time is burnout. In 2024, almost half of workers (44%) admitted to feeling burned out.
Of course, the less obvious downside of hurrying is that you might miss something fun or fulfilling: the perfect job, meeting someone who’s a great fit for you, a creative idea that you’d love working on, etc.
Over to you
What is your relationship like with hurry? What have you found helpful in slowing down and taking your time with tasks and to-dos? I’d love to learn from you!
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