My goal for this new year is to embrace a slower approach to my work. I read this convicting little book over my Christmas break called Slow Productivity, the latest by my favourite author of self-help literature, Cal Newport. Self-help literature, I admit, is a guilty pleasure of mine. I also feel an affinity with Cal because he, like me, is a man of seemingly impossible passions and commitments: a father, a university professor, a researcher, and an author (of academic articles, books, blog posts, and New Yorker op-eds!). But by all accounts, Cal thrives. He claims, anyways, to live a balanced, deep, meaningful life: to end his work day at 5pm, to enjoy meaningful time with his children, to take holidays, and to spend his evenings reading for pleasure. Whether or not all this is true, of course, I will never know, but when a person with that much on the go writes a book with the subtitle The Lost Art of Accomplishment without Burnout, I just can’t help myself.
I am someone who has an almost terrifying list of creative hopes and aspirations. I am also someone who believes that dreams must be attended to and nurtured in the same way that one would nurture a child—there is, after all, so much of the childlike about a dream. I believe, moreover, that these tender longings of the heart are necessary and central to the spiritual life.
But how, practically, can I live with all these unfinished projects, this growing pile of half-used art supplies, dozens of unfinished songs, and these bursts of almost painful creative impulse that threaten to tear me in a hundred different directions? What do I want in 2025: a thousand things—to write more poetry, to finish a collection of short stories, to publish a series of academic essays, to record an album, to start a new band, to take up figure drawing, to paint, to collage, to teach, to write this newsletter, and to enjoy quite evenings at home. I want it all, and I defy anyone who will make me choose.
But surely (someone will say) this is pride and delusion; you must have more realistic expectations. I say, in reply, that Love knows no bounds. It is Love that compels me to hope in the fulfillment of all Beauty, all Truth, and all Good, and it is Love that dares me to believe that I might be a vessel for their co-mingling and appearance on earth. Plato calls time a moving image of eternity. Time and eternity, he says, are not realities detached from one another, but bound in a relationship of revelation. All that eternity possesses simply and in itself (all goodness, truth, and beauty), longs to express itself. And pouring forth into the world, time discloses eternity’s secrets. Plato also calls the world “a shrine for the everlasting gods.” It is on earth that the divine becomes visible, and the human soul is the priest of that revelation, calling eternal goodness forward into bodies, rejoicing in what it discovers, earnestly desiring everywhere to taste and see the Homeland.
So again, I respectfully defy all well-meaning advice that takes on the guise of prudence and moderation. This voice whispers, “you must stop wanting to do so much”, when what it really means is “to desire and believe in so much goodness is folly.”
Still, here I am, a being with a body who lives in time. I am bound by the restriction that is also the inner meaning of rational soul: I may be in love with all beauty, but I can only do one thing at a time. That, in sum, is what Cal Newport’s book is about, a life of true humility which trusts (by faith) that, in the end, one thing at a time will be enough.
As you might imagine, the preceeding doesn’t exactly represent the spirit with which Cal makes his case. He doesn’t, for example, call any of this an act of faith. But that is the only way I can understand it. All the things I hope to do and work on and discover and learn and read and write are flashings forth of a love that seeks out the Goodness that made the world. Now, am I willing to believe that these goodnesses will be made perfect according to the secret wisdom that was there in the beginning? Do I believe that the limits around my life will, in the end, be made (by some Power) adequate to the Love, which as someone put it, “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
All of that is very fine and good, but how does one take these steps forward by faith?Here are some of the practices from Cal’s book that have been an encouragement to me in the first weeks of this new year:
1. Work on only one project a day
I am someone whose second thought on awaking is usually the first item in a long list of what I would love to do that day. But will I be able to honour any of these dreams if I try to do them all at once? The goodness of each must be honoured in turn. One step forward a day will take me far further than weeks of frenzied over-work followed by months of confused burn-out and recuperation. Cal devotes an entire section of the book to the importance of taking real holidays, whether they be cheeky nips out to mid-week matinees or proper sabbaticals. In either case, Cal says, take the pay cut and let your life breath. Doing so, you may gather up courage to hope for even more in the next task.
2. Set firm boundaries around digital communication
How can I truly do one thing at a time when every minute and a half I pull out my phone and check my email? Most of the time, of course, there is nothing new to see, but when there is, I see it almost right away. I’m sitting down to mark papers, but now I’m thinking about so-and-so, and what they need for such-and-such, and realizing that I had forgotten about that thing due next Friday, and isn’t there just a hundred things to talk about doing with a hundred different people at every hour of the day? Cal has a whole other book just about email, but his advice is simple: emailing is a big job, so treat it that way. Remove email from your finger tips, book in the time you need a few times a day to process what’s come in, and in every other time, leave it alone.
3. Defend and cultivate times of deep, uninterrupted focus
These are the times in which that “one project” gets to open its wings and take flight. It’s also a step that feels impossible until no. 2 is firmly in place. Who cares if I woke an hour before the baby to do some writing if the first thing I do is check my inbox? I find it very tempting to blame the world for the many distractions that fill up my working days, but what if I honoured and defended my time of private and silent industry in the present with the same energy with which I dream about the future. If doing one-thing-at-a-time is an act of faith, then deep work is what faithfulness looks like in action. When I start to realize that I can trust this time of focus, I dream even more. After I take this step, I will get to take another. What a beautiful proposition.
4. Say “no” with rigour and intelligence
Cal thinks we are so busy and burnt out because we lack meaningful ways to measure and communicate what we are already working on. Most people, he says, fill their lives right up to the edge of what their stress levels will allow, since that feeling of stress is often the only indication we have that we are doing too much. Cal’s suggestion is this: keep a careful record of the projects you have on the go. Maintain no more than three active projects, but keep a list as long as you like of what you want to do next. Keep this list of projects detailed and concrete, including due dates, contacts, and all the information necessary for their accomplishment. When one active project is completed, invite a new project up into active status. The beauty of a “pull” procedure like this is that when someone emails you with an assignment or idea for something new to do, there is now clear documentary evidence of what is possible. “I’m happy to take this on, thanks for asking. Please note, however, that due to other pressing engagements, I won’t be able to begin working on it for another three or four weeks.” Or perhaps: “I don’t think this is the best time for me to take on this project. I have urgent matters lined up for the next few months already.”
So in 2025 I want to practice trusting that everything, in the end, will find its place according to the secret purposes of Mystery that knows and sees all. One-thing-at-a-time is a spiritual life of devotion to that same Mystery. To dream is to feel the flashing forth of love, but to take a single step forward is to become a true lover.
My error is not wanting to much, but insisting that I have it all now. Cal’s book has been forcing me to recognize the ways I have resisted and struggled against the sacred limits that circumscribe my being. There is only one way forward for life in the body and that is step by step, slowly.
—Matthew
What are your hopes and dreams for this year?
Post scriptum:
It’s a pleasure to be back here in the newsletter with you all. Thanks for reading! A very warm welcome to all you new readers. I made some promises that new adopters would have a chance to download my new folk songs from the fall. I am loath to withhold the same pleasure from any others who are faithful here, so please, at this link, feel free to enjoy!
Ugh it's almost painful how much I can resonate with your almost painful creative impulse and terrifyingly long list of creative aspirations, Matthew! Except my list is just in my head--so perhaps that's the first step: writing them down, then approaching them one by one. Thanks for this!
I bought the book when you mentioned it. Looking forward to reading it!