Remember Warren Buffett’s take on efficiency? Nine women can’t produce a baby in one month. 📆 Some things take the time they take—and the time is what teaches us and prepares us for other experiences.
So in this age of optimizing for speed, how do we value activities that defy efficiency?
Yesterday I went for a hike. Since the dawn of the year, I’ve promised myself I’d go for at least one hike a week. I’m not trying to improve fitness or gain speed or map my town’s wetlands, though I suppose those byproducts come with the terrain. (Pun!) The activity is its own purpose, goal, and outcome. Why would I want to make it more efficient?
Yesterday I saw some wild geranium growing along the trail and a Great Blue Heron lift from a tumbling brook. Efficiency had no place in the picture.
Leslie Bradshaw wrote a rangy, thoughtful piece on what it looks like not to optimize our lives for efficiency, but to slow down for experience. We learn, grow, and enjoy more. Several years ago, I started researching how adding friction fuels discovery and learning. Slowing down improves efficiency because it improves efficacy in learning, memory, and satisfaction. This topic has been on my mind more and more over the past few years. So many of my non-work interests, like hiking, gardening, and watercolor, demand endurance over efficiency. They take patience and take the time they take. If I were to optimize for efficiency, I’d miss learning. I’d miss out.
When we’re done optimizing, can we trade in all the efficiency for experience again? Or will we have collectively missed out?
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Originally published on LinkedIn
