Work Like a Gardener
Page 5: Slowing down in a world obsessed with speed
I’ve never been great at keeping plants alive. I either drown them with too much water, or forget to water them entirely. But there’s something in the act of gardening that feels like the creative process. Ideas, like plants, grow in their own time and at their own pace. If you over-work them, or neglect them, well… they die. Ideas need space to breathe, and time to grow. If you’re constantly in go-go-go mode, squeezing productivity out of every second, all the good ideas are dead before they even have a chance to bloom.
“I work like a gardener… Things come slowly… Things follow their natural course. They grow, they ripen. I must graft. I must water… Ripening goes on in my mind.
So I’m always working at a great many things at the same time.”
— Joan Miró
Right now, I’m testing about 200+ different white papers just to find the perfect one for the inner pages of our exercise books. It’s slow work. Some might call it obsessive, and trust me, it’s hardly exciting. But it’s the real process.
So here’s the big lesson: slow down, but turn up. Slow growth leads to strong growth, but only if you keep tending the garden. Do the work, and not just when you’re feeling motivated, but every day. Just 30 minutes a day of moving the needle is enough to make significant progress over a year.
Sure, the world might be obsessed with algorithms, optimisations and hustle culture, but life—and creativity—doesn’t work that way. Embrace the slow burn, the gradual process, and know that the best things rarely happen overnight.
Now, excuse me while I go test white paper #154.