It has taken me four weeks to write this article. It started with an email from Stylist asking me to contribute to Generation Tick Tock, a series on the topic of time. I took several days to come up with an idea, and once I’d heard back from my editor, I spent even longer pondering exactly what I’d like to write. Eventually, I sat down at 4pm on a Thursday (after an hour’s yin yoga) to begin. In short, it has been a very slow process to even get as far as this first paragraph.

This is at least 30 times slower than how I used to work. When I started my career as a journalist in my early 20s, I’d write multiple articles a day (“Please can you stop writing so fast, it’s putting us all to shame,” was a daily complaint from my colleagues). Back at school, I did everything so quickly that I finished all my GCSEs with half an hour to go. And as an author, I’m now writing an average of two novels a year. 

It might sound impressive – and I have to admit it is very useful in my career – but it also has its downsides. I faced a major legal issue in my first month as a journalist because of an error I made while rushing. I did well in school exams, but my teachers all told me I’d do even better if I just slowed down. And there have been times in my life where I’ve worked so intensely that I’ve brought myself to burnout.

Then there’s the personal. My mum’s biggest complaint to me as a teen was: “Can you please speak slower? I have no idea what you’re saying.” Some of my worst arguments with friends have been caused by my impatience and the expectation that they should get ready/leave the house/order food as quickly as me. I’ve even rushed dating – moving so fast that I found myself in relationships I didn’t want to be in.

And then 2020 happened. It took a pandemic to do it, but for the first time in my life, I had no choice but to go slowly. And to my surprise (after an initial mini-breakdown), I loved it – spending days sunbathing in my garden, marvelling at the perfection of my new cat, Coco, and taking two hours to make lunch because what else was I going to do? When lockdown restrictions ended, my inner Usain Bolt wanted to race back into travelling, socialising, working and hobbying at manic speed. But deep down, I knew that wasn’t what I wanted. I couldn’t live my 30 on the same mad rollercoaster I’d been on in my 20s. I needed to do things differently – and so I did. 

Over two years on, and I’m now officially someone who lives life slowly (or, at least, tries to). I don’t set an alarm to wake up. I let myself gradually awaken at around 7-8am, stroke my cat for as long as she’ll let me, and then I meditate for 15 minutes without fail. The discipline of meditating means my day has to start slowly, which sets the tone for the rest of it. And after a leisurely breakfast, accompanied by journaling or reading, I finally shower and sit down to work. By then, it’s around 10am.

And I take my time to do my work – whether it’s journalism, writing novels, screenwriting or planning my yoga classes. Sometimes I even go for a long walk to come up with ideas for my writing, rather than forcing myself into creativity like I used to (a paradox, I know). I don’t socialise as much these days, which means I only say ‘yes’ to plans I really want to do. And while I’ve always done yoga daily, I no longer seek intense vinyasa practices – I’m now much more drawn to yin, where the entire focus is on going slow. 

The difference it has made to my life is mind-blowing. I always thought that speed was essential for success. I absorbed the messages from movies and the media about the importance of action: doing and achieving. I used to think that if I rushed, I’d have more time. But now I know the opposite is true. The slower I go, the more time I have.

When I allow my body to go at its natural speed – not the one I conditioned it into – I can make more thoughtful, insightful decisions. I can hear my gut instincts because I’ve created the space for them. I take much longer to make choices than I used to – spending days rather than hours sitting with decisions – but they often end up being more direct routes to where I want to get to, instead of the fast, zig-zagged lines of confusion that I used to race around. And because I take my time, I have more energy. I’m not as stressed as I used to be, and I rarely panic about meeting deadlines – I simply trust that the slower I go, the more I’ll be able to think calmly and work something out.

I even talk slower now. I’m a better listener. I can see the joy of just being rather than constantly needing to prove myself by doing. I take inspiration from my greatest teacher – the aforementioned Coco – who can spend hours staring into foliage waiting for something to happen, and never feels the need to go at any pace other than her own. I no longer strive for things; I try to just allow them to be and see what unfolds with time.  

It all reminds me of the old fable of the hare and the tortoise. They both get to the same place in the end, but while the fast hare is waylaid by a combo of ego and exhaustion, the slow and steady tortoise gets there first. Aesop doesn’t go into the details, but I imagine the tortoise is also way less stressed out and anxious on arrival than the hare. And that’s exactly what keeps me going slow. 

Every time I feel the urge to go back to doing things quickly, I remember that my goal isn’t to get somewhere first, or sometimes even to get somewhere at all – my only goal is to live a peaceful life while I take one step at a time, as slowly as I need to. 

This article is part of Generation Tick Tock, a Stylist series exploring our complex relationship with time. You can read the full series here.

Images: SEBC Photography; courtesy of Radhika Sanghani