Join us on July 10th for a Live Discussion with Alex Snider, author of Sometimes You Should Be Late

What if Slowing Down is the Best Way Forward?

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger is a banger of a song, but despite what many CEOs think, hyperfocusing on productivity and efficiency can lead to some pretty harsh consequences in our personal and professional lives.

If you’ve got a job, chances are you’re spending your days wearing multiple hats, balancing demands from multiple stakeholders, trying to thread the needle on an overbooked calendar, and wrangling your colleagues to meet overlapping deadlines.

Out of work? Chances are you’re feeling just as tired as you were when you had a job. The constant resume and cover letter revisions, the hours spent scrolling through job boards, the excruciating PMP prep courses, the coffee dates and informational interviews, the coaching webinars, the career fairs…it all adds up.

The pressure to be productive (especially when compounded by FOMO) causes us to burnout as we fry our brains in an attempt to juggle everything. I doubt this comes as a surprise to any of you. We know that there’s only 24 hours in a day and that taking on too much will eventually lead to us crashing out.

So how do we escape this cycle?

Alex Snider has an answer. He thinks you should slow down.

We’ll be digging into how and why during our next Author Talk on Friday July 10th.

The Slow Rebellion

I first met Alex last fall at one of FormerGov’s Coworking Hours. During his 15 years as a strategic planning and foreign policy expert with various federal agencies, Alex saw first hand what happens to people when they are forced to operate under high pressure situations for long periods of time. In 2023, he co-founded Mindful Fed, a cross-government mindfulness community designed to help his fellow public servants keep their sanity intact while working within a rigid system.

But Alex was no longer working as a Fed. In fact, he had decided to pursue writing full-time and was in the middle of writing his first book. After months of hard work, Sometimes You Should Be Late comes out today (July 7th), and I’ll be sitting down with Alex this Friday (July 10th) to dig into the story behind the book.

If you’re looking for practical advice on how to redefine your relationship with time (and all the demands being placed on yours), join us Friday morning at 10:30am EDT.

Not sure what your relationship with time looks like? Take this short quiz and let me know where you landed. Turns out I’m a hopeful optimizer.

Thinking About Writing Your Own Book?

Don’t forget Jennifer Erie is joining us again on July 22 and she’s bringing her editor, Maria MacAndrew, along with her. We’ll be discussing the ins-and-out of writing a book and getting it published. Be sure to join us Wednesday morning for what promises to be another great discussion.