Why Do I Take So Long to Do Everything? 

You feel yourself as slow as a snail, and taking way too much time to accomplish anything of worth…

You keep wondering : Why am I so slow??

Well, you are in good company : I started making myself this questions when I was a teenager. Everybody seemed to be faster and smarter than I was and I tried my a** out to be as “cool” as they were and have myself accepted in the “superstars group”…

And as a bad by-product, this frame of thinking pushed me away from the solution, making me focus instead on “what do they think” rather than on myself. Sounds familiar?

In this article I share the results of my 20+ years of research, trying to resolve my issues of productivity searching for improvements on my speed to accomplish any task.

Introduction

The question “Why am I so slow” is relative, and could have to do with different aspects of your personality as well as some of the tasks themselves :

1. You do not understand the task completely
2. You are not interested in the task at all
3. Distractions
4. You are taking on too much
5. You lose enthusiasm
6. You are in a depressive cycle
7. You expect too much from yourself
8. Perfection syndrome
9. You are heavily stressed

(before going further, take a moment to pounder on any of the above…)

Notice that in this list I did not mention something “classics” like procrastination, because to me it is effectively a by-product of some of the causes listed.

(As a side note: Actually, it is rather complex to distinguish between cause and effect since they can be by strictly interconnected).

For instance:  if you are not interested in the task because you do not see advantages for yourself, you could not let yourself understand the task itself completely.

As a consequence, this could bring you to quickly lose enthusiasm (if you had any), and easily indulge on distractions as a way to escape emotional pain.

Or, it could happen to you to be in a depressive cycle, and so you could aim to prove to yourself or others that ”you can”… 

So you engage in huge chunks of the project without proper planning and expecting too much from yourself. This could add stress to your condition, and to defend yourself your subconscious could force you to seek perfection in less important aspects of the project when in reality you are just trying to give yourself a break from the stress and get some time to recover.

Why am I Slower than Everyone else?

If you see yourself in some of the above, Man,  you are not alone for sure and you do not have to feel ashamed at all for experiencing these conditions.  The vast majority of us have been there and it may be useful instead to consider them a stepping stone for our growth, something positive that pushes us ahead rather than a stick with which beat ourselves.

It is in Human Nature to always tend to seek for the worst scenario, and this is no exception.  It happens to everybody to think of themselves as the last in line in this or that skill when this is just not true…

Listen, I do not know you personally,  but I’m very sure that you do not have any real statistical evidence that you are slower or “worse” than anybody else at doing what you do (you do not know everybody in the world, don’t you?).

From my experience as a father,  I see young people fighting constantly against an image of themselves they struggle to accept.

The bulk of beliefs we build in the last decades of our society pushes any of us to show others that we are the strongest-fastest-wealthiest most beautiful-intelligent-smart-talented human beings in the universe, now and for years to come!!

…ìs there any need to prove here how false and twisting these beliefs are?

And, we the “adults” are just grown children:

We could have “resolved” some aspects of our personalities while still struggling hard with others….

My Own Personal Defeats

Hey, this is a true story :

I have involved myself in financial trading for more than twenty years, and I did not make it!!

I wasn’t able so far to turn myself into a constantly profitable trader…

Let alone providing for myself and my loved ones with the results coming from the markets.

Here the question would be : “Why am I so slow in learning?”, right? And if you were in my shoes, wouldn’t you think you are not “smart” enough to get it?

Or maybe feel a complete “loser” (like I did many times) for getting squeezed so many times without even being able to learn and take advantage from my own mistakes?

You have to decide : you will live with yourself your whole life.

It is up to you to gift yourself a positive, challenging, profound, colorful life, or one of constant anxiety, denial, and need.

And, for your interest : nobody invests his time in focusing on your mistakes and judging you for more than a few minutes. 

Why Do I Waste So Much Time?

Referring back to what I wrote above, your body is telling you something…

You find yourself fighting to minimize wasting time but you cannot effectively explain yourself what is really going on..

. Most of the time it is your physiology finding means to run away from the task at hand.

So it is pointless to fight against yourself and force your focus to produce results. This strategy won´t last long and will most probably make the situation worse.  

Start instead observing yourself and calmly understand what you are effectively trying to avoid.

“Why am i so slow?”

The naked truth is, when we indulge in some activity that is different as planned before, we are effectively just trying to avoid pain or give ourselves more pleasure than we suppose to get from that activity.

A viable solution for sticking to the plan is to chunk your tasks. Start chunking it as small as possible.

Really, it has to be silly for you to “waste your time for so little”! 

So as a consequence you will try to get on some more until you find and a good equilibrium you can sustain with a correct and healthy amount of effort.

Like always : do not just read my word or you won’t get any results. Try it. Do it now! 🙂

How Do you Deal with a Slow Worker?

Ok, now similar conditions arrive from a member of your team and there’s money involved. What then??

Have a private talk with him in which both parties will explain their needs and expectations.

Also bear in mind that many times a person do not realize at all his weak spots.

Sorry if i am so blunt, but you have to be intelligent enough to ask yourself “why am I so slow?”

So be friendly, but very professional : this talk has to do with improving business, reserve eventual personal relations for another moment,

You can go for a beer even at the end of this meeting😉. 

Try to be very specific in describing to him once again the areas of the business he is assigned to.

Also remember him why your company chose him as the right person to do the job.

Finally encourage him to evaluate, based on data, his performance so far.

(Listen to him carefully. even take notes!  I received times and times again wonderful suggestions from the people in my team about how to turbo-boost our operations).

From this point, you can discuss together the eventual adjustment needed to make the best use of his characteristics. Again, the point here is not searching for a random culprit but for solutions.

Important : I suggest you plan a new meeting straight away, to monitor if these adjustments have been implemented and are giving the expected results…

And, on the other hand, you could also find yourself talking to somebody who has no specific interests in improving his performance, nor contributing to the growth of your company…

Then sadly, in the best interest of both, this will be the exact moment to let him go. 

How much Time do we Really Have in a Day?

This is a conventional number we use to be on the same page one another when using such an abstract entity as time. 

But from a bare-bone, painfully practical perspective, we have to consider “time at our disposal” only that, that can be indeed used for a particular tasks we are working on.

This has profound implication rekated to our original question “Why am i so slow?”

Bear with me and let me explain.

Just to start out, this concept cuts out the night hours, since we are sleeping and can do nothing else.

Our “active” day then starts when we wake up and finish when we have no energy left and we have to go to sleep again.

From that, we have to subtract all the minutes you have to employ in order to run the “in betweens”.

Those are trivial but important activities like having a shower and dressing. Or making a healthy use of your toilet, commuting from one place to another, and many many others.

Bear in mind that our conscious perception of time is limited to the task at hand. (The human brain can really focus on only one “object” at a time).

And thus it is key to include some measurements in the whole process.

We all know that time is our most precious resource, it is not unlimited and you cannot have it back.

But time is not responsible for our happiness,

Time doesn´t care our feeling of completion, or the ultimate meaning we give to this journey we call life.

We have to. 

Some practical Time Management examples from real life? Follow the link and find out how I do it…

Time Doesn´t care…

I was always fascinated since I was a child by the concept of “the time running away”.

To be honest I still find myself scared from time to time..

The Idea that someday all of this would be over and I will have to face some new reality,  some new dimension… or nothing at all, who knows?…

And in the end,  I am finding more awareness and consolation by trying to be the best companion on my own journey. ..

And that means being as friendly and delicate to myself as possible, while investing my whole being to pursue what I understand is my mission.

Now, don’t get me wrong:  I am wealthy enough to afford not having to work for a good number of years.

(No, not forever…😅😅😅)

I have a wonderful, loving family,  which I am learning to appreciate as I move forward in my path of life.

But, and I don’t know if that’s you also, I find myself many times alone with the question :

Which is a wildly more profound question compared to “Why am I so slow?”

A different Strategy

The years pass by and I add some more pieces to this giant jigsaw.

It is funny, an interesting idea keeps showing up :

The jigsaw will be probably never complete.

So what could maybe make more sense? 

The best strategy for a meaningful but serene life is investing time in knowing yourself as deeply as you can. That´s it!

Choose a path that makes you smile rather than super-wealthy (of course the two can come together).

AND, the most important thing : get along with people the best you possibly can.

Perhaps you will not get it now, but you will find further down the road that we are all connected.

Be it only to share living those insecurities and doubts that any of us has to live with.

So even the chance to share them with others and receive their insights in return is something of massive value!

Sometimes this is all it takes to take yourself up and try again…

Conclusion : 

Why am I so slow?

In this article we discussed different aspects of a Time Management related issue like the belief of “being slow”.

(And thus feeling inferior to other “talented superheroes” in your circle of peers).

We investigated about different possible causes trying to offer a different frame of reference to how to deal with them.

We came to realize that the whole subject deals with the beliefs and the picture you have of yourself.

We discussed also about similar situations in the workspace from an employer’s point of view…

And finally extended in a more introspective paragraph about the nature of our perception of time.

Our environment gives us the conventions we use to measure it. But still it is up to you to be in command. Often these conventions serve us poorly as we run relentlessly between the myriad commitments of our day.

I do not say it to be harsh but just the opposite : if we all gave ourselves time enough to explore, understand and love ourselves then we would grow much faster.

Limiting the pressure from the chaotic environment we often make of our days, we would experience Time very differently…

We could actually “expand” time by the immense possibilities of multiplying it by leverage.

Strive to combine your skills with those of the like-minded, powerful companions we happen to meet while moving ahead in our journey.

This is a pretty profound subject, and I would be pleased to expand on it with you. 

So, this is for everyone here questioning “Why am I so slow in doing everything?”

If you want to share your insights or have some questions, feel free to write them in the comments right now!