Maybe Less is More

I just read an interesting article at nautil.us. It was titled, "Darwin Was a Slacker and You Should Be Too," by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang. It's actually an excerpt from his book, Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less.

I've given a lot of thought to the debate about how we can be the most productive. And all that thought led to, well, confusion. There seemed to be little clear evidence one way or the other. The author of the article (and book) comes down decisively on the side of working less but working more intently and intensely.

In the article, he mentions a number of famous authors who worked about four hours a day. Yet, he also says these four hours were intense, focused work and they did put in other work during the day, but it was of a more ancillary nature. Some of the authors mentioned include Dickens, Thomas Mann, Alice Munro, W. Somerset Maugham, and Hemingway.

Also, the author stresses that the four to five hours were usually broken up into two or three work periods. Drawing on a study of the traits of outstanding violinists versus merely good violinists, Pang says three periods of eighty to ninety minutes with half-hour breaks between them would be ideal.

An interesting article, indeed. I will probably be getting the book.

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