Slow for Good
Earlier this week I stepped out for a requisite saunter to pick up the current issue of GOOD magazine: the ‘Slow’ issue.
As I splayed myself across the 112 pages of all things slow: slow labs, slow food, slow clubs, and the 16-page readymade manifesto “The GOOD Guide to Slowing Down” I considered yours and my citizenship in an unhurried world.
What if we all did this? — Stepped out for a quiet jaunt in our neighbourhood. Stopped. Sat. Read a magazine from cover to cover without a single e-mail, twitter, crackberry or snack break. What if we slowly began to master the art of being? Slowed down for good.
What if the next time we had the opportunity to tackle a project, join an extracurricular, or accept a new role, we opted out? Said no? And instead stayed home and boiled beans? (The Slow issue will tell you how.) Good or not so good?
GOOD suggests five easy ways to unplug your gadgets and your life:
Stage a blackout
Stay off email, instant messenger, and your phone for a few dedicated hours daily, or even for a whole day. Use that time to focus on your most important work, and spend your leftover time googling stuff, fiddling around on Facebook, and otherwise gathering the steam to do it all again tomorrow.
Don’t spam yourself
Use a separate address or at least a filter to redirect messages from the senators, activists, online communities, and retailers to whom you give your address.
Declare email bankruptcy
If your unread emails have reached unmanageable proportions, wipe the slate clean—just notify everyone in your contact list first. To prevent another crisis, set up an autoreply signaling that you check email only once a day and recommending the phone for urgent matters.
Leave your smartphone at home
Yeah, yeah, you love that little gadget because it gives you “freedom.” But that little gadget also means you have no excuse, ever, to not be reachable. Pick one day a month to leave your house without your smartphone. There are still pay phones in all major cities, and no one will miss your mobile uploads (trust us).
Turn off the instant messenger
Enough said.
Ideas? Post 
I cheered when I saw the cover of the issue, and thought a lot of it was rather good, if sometimes tongue-in-cheek. Obviously we can’t slow down with everything – and shouldn’t, because we do in fact need to tackle the right opportunities.
But then again, slowing down before we accept them might mean more time for prayer.
I had a colleague who declared “email bankruptcy” (and he knows who he is, and is probably reading this). It made us want to lynch him. That said, it was apparently effective for him – if terminally frustrating for us.