Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast

“Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.”

The adage “slow is smooth, smooth is fast” comes from the Navy SEALs, a group not typ­ic­ally asso­ci­ated with the slow and steady approach. ¹The ori­gin of the phrase “slow is smooth, and smooth is fast” is unclear, but it is often attrib­uted to United States Navy SEALs or oth­er mil­it­ary groups. The idea behind the phrase is that by … Continue read­ing

However, this para­dox­ic­al phrase encap­su­lates a vital les­son applic­able to all spheres of life and work — often, speed is not the end goal.

Here we go:

Lessons From Armed Forces

From the per­spect­ive of a mil­it­ary pro­fes­sion­al, the wis­dom of “smooth is fast” per­meates com­plex oper­a­tion­al drills. 

Whether clear­ing houses, dis­em­bark­ing under enemy fire from trucks or heli­copters, or car­ry­ing cas­u­al­ties, these scen­ari­os demand the seam­less exe­cu­tion of sev­er­al mul­ti­fa­ceted tasks:

These tasks must be executed under high-stress con­di­tions, bom­barded with sens­ory overload. 

Artists, Athletes, and Academics

The pres­sure to do everything faster is ubi­quit­ous in a world obsessed with optim­iz­a­tion and effi­ciency. However, we must res­ist this trend and instead lean into the fine art of slow­ing down. 

I’m not advoc­at­ing slug­gish­ness but high­light­ing the mer­it in delib­er­ate thought and action, where the end goal is not speed but the rich­ness of out­put and the joy in the process.

Artists, ath­letes or aca­dem­ics are typ­ic­ally unhur­ried. They delib­er­ately execute their pre­par­at­ory routines, ath­letes approach their bod­ies patiently, and aca­dem­ics ded­ic­ate sub­stan­tially more time to tasks than expec­ted. They invest those extra minutes in tasks like con­sist­ency checks, allow­ing thoughts to mature, spot­ting irreg­u­lar­it­ies, or enhan­cing a visu­al representation. 

This “slow­ness” trig­gers accel­er­a­tion and effi­ciency on a broad­er scale, res­ult­ing in high over­all performance.

Enjoy Smooth Emailing

For a more busi­ness-ori­ented example, let’s reflect on our rela­tion­ship with emails:

The pre­vail­ing nar­rat­ive seems to imply that we should all have an innate aver­sion to our inboxes. “If you don’t loathe all forms of email­ing, then some­thing must be wrong with you.”

At least for me, writ­ing a well-thought-out email is not a dreaded task but a pleas­ur­able engage­ment. It involves pick­ing the right words and craft­ing them into sen­tences that res­on­ate with intent and connection. 

Emailing, for me, is not about rush­ing through an inbox to attain the glor­i­fied status of Inbox Zero but about the mean­ing­ful exchange that unfolds with­in each email.

See also: Pavlov’s Inbox

Enjoy Smooth Meetings

This philo­sophy isn’t just applic­able to email. It extends to meet­ings, anoth­er arena often sub­ject to the tyranny of the clock. 

Yes, no one enjoys a bad, drawn-out meet­ing, but is the solu­tion to make them uni­formly short­er? What about using that time to con­nect, explore ideas, and col­lect­ively cre­ate truly? 

Long, enga­ging meet­ings often lead to innov­at­ive solu­tions and stronger rela­tion­ships that wouldn’t emerge in a com­pressed, hur­ried environment.

Fast is Not Better

There’s an under­ly­ing fear here, an anxi­ety that slow­ing down is syn­onym­ous with lazi­ness. Yet, exper­i­ence and pas­sion often demand a slower approach. 

A seasoned PR pro­fes­sion­al can draft a press release in 30 minutes that a juni­or may take hours to write. Given a leis­urely two hours, the same pro­fes­sion­al could craft a doc­u­ment of such qual­ity that would be unreach­able in a time-con­strained environment. 

Taking your time to enjoy your craft does not imply lazi­ness; it emphas­izes the value of exper­i­ence, cre­ativ­ity, and pas­sion over simple out­put metrics.

Other Proverbs and Sayings

Here are some pro­verbs and say­ings from around the world that emphas­ize the idea that tak­ing one’s time can lead to bet­ter results:

While emphas­iz­ing patience and delib­er­ate action, these adages do not dis­cour­age effi­ciency or timely actions. They merely stress the import­ance of doing things right, not just quickly.

The Tyranny of the Clock

Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856 – 1915) was an American mech­an­ic­al engin­eer widely con­sidered the fath­er of sci­entif­ic man­age­ment, or “Taylorism.” Preceding his stud­ies at Harvard Law due to health issues, he joined the Midvale Steel Company as a machin­ist and rose to become chief engin­eer. ²Frederick Winslow Taylor. (2023, May 24). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​F​r​e​d​e​r​i​c​k​_​W​i​n​s​l​o​w​_​T​a​y​lor

Taylor believed work­ers were inher­ently lazy and that a stop­watch could enhance pro­ductiv­ity. He observed work­ers’ beha­viour in mono­ton­ous fact­ory set­tings and con­cluded that labour pro­ductiv­ity could be sig­ni­fic­antly enhanced by elim­in­at­ing unne­ces­sary movements. 

This ideology’s linger­ing vestiges remain in glor­i­fy­ing speed and effi­ciency. However, it’s time to move bey­ond this dated perspective. 

We should encour­age young pro­fes­sion­als to deliv­er high-qual­ity work, even if it requires extra time, rather than instilling a fear of per­ceived inefficiency.

See also: The Acceleration Theory: Use Momentum To Finish First

The Slow Movement

The “Slow Movement” is a cul­tur­al shift towards slow­ing life’s pace. It emerged in response to the per­ceived speed­ing up of daily life, espe­cially in mod­ern indus­tri­al­ized soci­et­ies where time has become a highly val­ued commodity. 

The move­ment began with “Slow Food,” which star­ted in Italy in the late 1980s as a protest against fast food. It has since expan­ded to include vari­ous domains like “Slow Travel,” “Slow Living,” “Slow Parenting,” “Slow Fashion,” “Slow Cities,” and even “Slow Work.” ³Slow move­ment (cul­ture). (2023, May 8). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​S​l​o​w​_​m​o​v​e​m​e​n​t​_​(​c​u​l​t​ure)

These are all based on the fun­da­ment­al idea of tak­ing the time to do things well, rather than quickly.

In essence, it’s an approach that seeks to bal­ance effi­ciency and enjoy­ment, recog­niz­ing the value of the human touch in our fast-paced, tech-sat­ur­ated world.

Creativity, Passion, and Experience

Instead of push­ing for relent­less speed, we must foster an envir­on­ment that cel­eb­rates cre­ativ­ity, pas­sion, and experience. 

As we move towards a future where AI and auto­ma­tion increas­ingly take over repet­it­ive tasks, these human-cent­ric qual­it­ies become even more valuable. 

They can’t be rushed or stream­lined.
They need time to flourish.

Savour the pro­cess of writ­ing that thought­ful email, indulge in the cre­ativ­ity that arises from a long brain­storm­ing meet­ing and enjoy your cof­fee one slow sip at a time. 

After all, “slow is smooth, smooth is fast.” 

And it might be just what we need to nav­ig­ate the com­plex­it­ies of our fast-paced world.

PR Resource: Reading List

Crawford, M. B. (2015). The world bey­ond your head: On becom­ing an indi­vidu­al in an age of dis­trac­tion. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Newport, C. (2016). Deep work: Rules for focused suc­cess in a dis­trac­ted world. Grand Central Publishing.

Duhigg, C. (2014). The power of habit: Why we do what we do in life and busi­ness. Random House Trade Paperbacks.

Sutherland, R. (2019). Alchemy: The dark art and curi­ous sci­ence of cre­at­ing magic in brands, busi­ness, and life. HarperOne.

Schwartz, T. (2010). The way we’re work­ing isn’t work­ing: The four for­got­ten needs that ener­gize great per­form­ance. Free Press.

PR Resource: Productivity

Spin Academy | Online PR Courses

Doctor Spin’s PR School: Productivity

• Pavlov’s Inbox
• The Ivy Lee Method (to be published)
• My Phone Policy
• Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast
• The Acceleration Theory: Use Momentum To Finish First
• The Every Day Rule
• The Epic Year Approach: Control Your Life Event Density
• Image Streaming — Unleash Your Inner Genius

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