Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout

by Cal Newport

A work trends report published by Microsoft revealed that time spent in meetings had increased by a factor of 2.5 during the first year of the pandemic, while the quantity of instant message chats and emails received also exploded. As the report summarizes, “The digital intensity of workers’ days has increased substantially.” Most knowledge workers, of course, don’t need statistics to convince them of a trend that they experienced directly. As 2020 gave way to 2021, I began to regularly hear from readers complaining that they were losing more or less their entire day to back-to-back-to-back virtual meetings, with nearly every moment of downtime in between filled with hyperactive Slack chatter. The reports became so dire that I took to referring to this period as the Zoom Apocalypse. Which is all to say, it’s not surprising that Jonathan Frostick had a heart attack and that his primary resolution on recovering was to escape this video conference hell.