Embracing the Art of Slow Reading

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“Aside from your calendar, if you don’t have at least fifty next actions and waiting-fors, including all agenda for people and meetings, I would be skeptical about whether you really had all of them. If you’ve followed through rigorously with the steps and suggestions in part 2, though, you may have them already. If not, and you do want to get this level up-to-date, set aside some time to work through chapters 4 through 6 in real implementation mode.”  

So recommends David Allen on page 219 in his classic productivity book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity (Penguin, 2015). 

This book is one of my selections for the Three Book Challenge last month. Unlike the other two, Getting Things Done has proven to be resistant to efficient reading. 

For example, I have several lists created in my Evernote account for organizing important ideas that come to mind. 

• Errands 

• Home Projects 

• Personal Projects 

• Waiting For 

• Someday/Maybe 

• Next Actions 

• Scheduled Events 

• To-read 

However, I still need lists for tracking agenda items when I speak with supervisors and colleagues. I also don’t have a few of my lists populated with the ideas and tasks that need to be entered. So, I am rereading Chapters 4 through 6 to get my thoughts stored in my external brain and close more open loops in my head. 

Like the call-to-action David Allen makes in his guide, our natural tendency when reading a book is to get it done. Mark “Finished” in Goodreads, or document it in our reading journal. Rate it on Amazon and maybe write a short review. Tell a few people about it if we really liked it (or we really didn’t). Start the next book. 

This is the limit of contrived contests such as the Three Book Challenge and similar experiences designed to motivate readers to read: we prioritize the destination potentially at the expense of the journey. 

I didn’t want to move on from page 219 in Getting Things Done until I felt confident that I was committing to the process. It helps that I trust the process that Allen lays out. 

It also helps that I am, surprisingly, enjoying Allen’s writing style. I was not expecting the book’s spiritual element interwoven with the more technical aspects of the text. The reader is just as likely to encounter a quote from Buddha as they are example items for a Someday/Maybe List.  

I was reminded of Thomas Newkirk’s book The Art of Slow Reading: Six Time-Honored Practices for Engagement.

The author advocates for not feeling rushed with our reading and allowing the words to create a context for our lives. 

“We can learn to pay attention, concentrate, devote ourselves to authors. We can slow down so we can hear the voice of texts, feel the movement of sentences, experience the pleasure of words--and own passages that speak to us. (p. 41)” 

I’ve learned that we can find these mindful and joyful literate experiences in any kind of text. 

That said, it’s also important to note that the environment and the conditions need to be supportive of embracing slow reading. Readers need permission and support for taking their time when necessary. The visible priority for reading must be understanding, enjoyment, and transfer of the ideas from the text to our lives. Reading in order to learn to read is a first step, and sometimes a “primitive” one, as Maryanne Wolf notes¹, if approached in an isolated and decontextualized way. 

At some point, I do need to finish Getting Things Done. I will never fully apply all the strategies and skills with 100% accuracy. Allen notes that it generally takes about two years to fully implement this methodology. I have other books on my to-read list waiting for me to open them up. But they aren’t going anywhere. Any deadlines I might put upon myself as a reader would be arbitrary. 

“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”

― Francis Bacon

What book has encouraged you to slow down and engage with it more deeply?

1.