Slow down, you crazy child You're so ambitious for a juvenile But then if you're so smart tell me Why are you still so afraid? Billy Joel, Vienna
Appreciate the present
It’s difficult to be happy when worrying about the future or rehashing the past. Remember when all you ever wanted is what you have right now? Take time to be grateful for that, otherwise your life will be spent rushing from one goal to the next.
The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune’s control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately. Seneca, On the Shortness of Life
Work methodically
Taking your time does not mean being slow as much as it means being methodical. Methodical work can be quite fast—often faster than rushed work that needs correction. Working methodically means being present in each step of the process.
Joy can come from concentrating on one thing and doing it well, regardless of what it is. The activity itself often matters less than our approach to it.
Nothing about him was harsh, relentless, or impetuous, and you would never say of him that he ‘broke out a sweat’: but everything was allotted its own time and thought, as by a man of leisure—his way was unhurried, organized, vigorous, consistent in all.Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Marcus is describing his adoptive father, Antoninus Pius, one of the “Five Good Emperors of Rome”. What state of mind must Antoninus have had for Marcus to refer to him as a “man of leisure"? Antoninus was undoubtedly busier than most of us will ever be. And yet, according to Aurelius, he was not overwhelmed. Antoninus was “unhurried, organized, vigorous, consistent in all.”
Productivity doesn’t come by frantic activity but from purposeful engagement. Take your time.