Why Slowing Down Can Change Your Life
Slowing down isn't about doing less. Discover how changing your pace, prioritising differently and setting boundaries can give you more clarity and control.
There are times in life when you absolutely need to move quickly.
If a building is on fire, you don't stop to consider whether you have enough time to make a cup of tea first. You get out.
If someone urgently needs your help, you do your utmost to get to them and provide the support they need.
There are thousands of situations where urgency is completely appropriate.
The problem isn't urgency itself. The problem is when everything starts to feel urgent.
For a long time, I was someone who operated at what I would describe as about 200 miles an hour. I was organised. I got things done. I managed my responsibilities.
But looking back, I think I was somewhere between a tornado and a filing cabinet.
The tornado was scooping up everything around me and the filing cabinet was somehow organising it all at the same time.
It sounds contradictory, but that's exactly how it felt. I wasn't necessarily struggling to cope. In fact, I had become so accustomed to operating at that pace that I barely questioned it.
What I eventually realised was that probably 90% of what I was doing didn't actually need to be done at 200 miles an hour.
That sudden realisation changed quite a lot for me moving forward.
Slowing down isn't about becoming less productive
When I talk about slowing down, I'm not talking about avoiding responsibility.
I'm not suggesting that we stop getting things done, ignore deadlines or become unreliable.
Quite the opposite.
For me, slowing down has been about becoming more deliberate about where I put my time, attention and energy.
Some things genuinely need to be done quickly. Some things will of course have a deadline. Some things are important to somebody else. Some things simply don't need to happen right now.
That last category was the one I needed to get better at recognising. Just because something has been put in front of me doesn't mean it automatically needs to jump to the top of my list.
Their priority is not automatically my priority
One phrase I regularly remind myself of is:
“Their priority is not my priority.”
Now, that might sound quite blunt.
It doesn't mean I don't care about other people's priorities - I do.
If someone I care about needs my help, I'll help where I can. If I say I'm going to do something, I'll do it. That's my word.
But caring about someone's priority doesn't mean I have to make it my immediate priority.
That's an important distinction.
For most people, this is particularly relevant at work.
Most workplaces have experienced situations where something has been overlooked, left until the last minute or suddenly becomes somebody else's “urgent” problem.
Let's be completely honest about why that happens... sometimes it's simply poor organisation. Sometimes it's poor management.
Sometimes, something genuinely unexpected has happened that throws a spanner in the works.
I'm not interested in judging why it happened. What matters is what happens next.
Previously, it would have been very easy to absorb the urgency and immediately start rearranging everything else around me.
Now, I stop.
I consider what I'm already responsible for. I consider the deadline. I consider what genuinely needs my attention.
And then I decide.
Sometimes I'll help, sometimes I'll move something around and sometimes the answer is simply that I can't do it right now.
That's not laziness. That's prioritisation.
The fear of saying no
I think one of the reasons we find it so difficult to slow down is that we can be frightened of saying no.
We don't necessarily want to disappoint people. We don't want to appear unhelpful.
We might feel guilty or we might worry about what somebody will think of us.
...So we say yes.
Then another thing gets added.
Then another...
And before long, we're not simply managing our own responsibilities, we're carrying other people's urgency as well.
Learning to say “not now” has been empowering for me. More importantly, it has helped me feel that I'm genuinely putting myself first.
Not selfishly.
Boundaried.
Nobody else is responsible for consistently putting you first. At some point, you have to do that for yourself. You owe yourself that.
Your to-do list doesn't need to be empty
This was another important shift for me. I used to have an almost subconscious desire to get the list completely empty.
There's a great feeling when you tick the final thing off. However, the reality is that in both your personal life and your working life, there will always be another list.
Another task.
One more responsibility.
Thn an email.
Something else that needs doing.
So I changed the way I viewed the list. The purpose of a to-do list isn't necessarily to finish the list. It's to get things out of your head.
If I write something down, I don't need to keep consciously remembering it. I know it's there. I know I'll come back to it. I can decide where it sits against everything else.
That means something can move up the list, whilst something else can move down it.
Something can wait, whilst something that seemed important yesterday might not be as important today.
That's completely okay.
The goal isn't necessarily an empty list. The goal is being in control of the list.
A simple change that helped me slow down
One of the most useful things I started doing was putting an approximate time next to each task.
Not an exact prediction but rather a realistic estimate, such as thirty minutes, one hour, two hours...
If I thought something would take 50 minutes, I'd allow an hour.
The point wasn't to create another complicated productivity system. It was to start retraining my brain to understand how long things actually take.
Laundry might take 30 minutes. An errand might take an hour. A piece of work might need two hours of proper concentration.
Once you start looking at your tasks like this, you begin to see something quite quickly:
Not everything needs your attention at the same time.
You can start asking yourself:
Does this genuinely need doing now?
What happens if I do it tomorrow?
How much time does this actually require?
Where does it sit against everything else I need to do?
And sometimes:
Do I actually need to do this at all?
That last question can be surprisingly powerful.
Slowing down gives you space to think
For me, this has probably been one of the biggest changes.
Slowing down has given me time to think, time to breathe and time to process.
Instead of immediately reacting to somebody telling me something is urgent, I have space to decide whether I agree.
I can consider the situation for myself. I can understand what is actually being asked. I can also consider the weight of it.
Then I can filter it accordingly.
When we're constantly rushing, we're often responding before we've actually had the opportunity to think.
Slowing down creates a gap between something happening and your response to it. In that gap, you regain some control.
It applies to much more than work
This isn't just something I've applied professionally. It has changed how I approach ordinary situations too.
Take driving, for example. If I leave in reasonable time and unexpected roadworks or traffic mean I arrive ten minutes later than planned, I'm not going to spend those ten minutes getting worked up about it. What does that actually achieve?
The traffic isn't going to disappear because I'm frustrated. Sometimes things simply take longer.
The same applies to shopping. I don't particularly enjoy shopping in the first place. I much prefer shopping online. But if I go into a shop, I don't create an unrealistic expectation that I'll be in and out within a certain amount of time.
There might be a queue. Something might be out of stock. The layout might have changed (especially in my local supermarket, I won't name names!...)
It's annoying, but it's not a crisis. I manage my expectations. That makes the experience considerably calmer.
Slowing down doesn't mean caring less
This is important because I don't want slowing down to be misunderstood as becoming less available to the people around you.
I still support people. I'll always help my family. I still have responsibilities outside work.
For example, I support my brother with the technical side of his business. He gives me reasonable notice about what he needs and because it's important to him, it's important to me.
I'll prioritise it and I'll get it done.
But I don't need to destroy my own wellbeing to prove that I care. And that is respected. The same principle applies to spending time with family and friends. When I'm with them, I want to actually be with them.
When I'm working, I want to actually work.
When I'm having time to myself, I want that time to actually be mine.
Slowing down has helped me create clearer boundaries between different parts of my life. That means I can give whatever I'm doing at that moment my full attention.
The surprising benefit: things get done properly
There's an assumption that slowing down must mean becoming less productive. My experience has been almost the opposite.
When I stop trying to do everything immediately, I can focus properly on whatever I'm actually doing. I'm not constantly thinking about the next thing.
I'm not trying to force myself to focus at an arbitrary time because I've convinced myself something else needs doing immediately. I'm able to give the task, person or situation in front of me my attention.
When I'm finished, I move on. That's very different from rushing through several things simultaneously while mentally thinking about five other things.
Sometimes slowing down is actually what allows you to do something properly.
You might still question yourself
I've been doing this for long enough now that most of it happens automatically.
I don't spend my day consciously telling myself: Slow down. Slow down. Slow down.
It's become part of my normal routine. But every now and then, particularly when I've made a decision that felt uncomfortable, I'll stop and reflect on it for a moment.
Did I make the right decision? Was saying no the right thing to do?
And I think that's completely normal. We can all second-guess ourselves.
The important thing is that discomfort doesn't automatically mean you've made the wrong decision. Sometimes saying no feels uncomfortable precisely because you're doing something different.
Sometimes putting something off feels uncomfortable because you've spent years believing that everything needs to be dealt with immediately.
Reflection allows you to check your decision without automatically abandoning the boundary you've put in place.
So, what does slowing down actually mean?
For me, it doesn't mean doing less. It doesn't mean becoming lazy. It doesn't mean ignoring responsibilities. It doesn't mean refusing to help people.
It certainly doesn't mean ignoring genuine urgency.
It means being intentional about what deserves your attention and when. It means recognising that somebody else's impatience doesn't automatically create an emergency for you.
It means understanding that your to-do list doesn't have to be empty. It means giving yourself permission to say: “I'll get to that when it's appropriate.”
And sometimes:
“No, I can't do that.”
Most importantly, it means putting yourself into the equation.
Your time matters, energy and wellbeing matters.
Quite possibly the biggest change for me has been the simplest one:
I feel clearer. I overthink less. I feel less overwhelmed. I'm calmer.
I still get things done.
Just not everything at 200 miles an hour anymore.
Sometimes, the most productive thing you can do is simply stop, breathe and ask yourself: “Does this really need to happen right now?”
Is this something you'd like to work on through coaching?
Take the quick Find Your Support quiz to see which coaching, training or support option could help you move forward with more clarity, confidence and direction.
Alternatively, feel free to get in touch with me to find out how I could support you or find out more about one-to-one coaching for adults here.
I also run the Burnout: Recover & Reset group coaching session online regularly.
