What is the rush?

For whatever reason, thoughts about work creep up when I’m cooking.

How much progress have I made? How much left is there to do? Will I finish on time? Will I do a good job?

As I’m thinking through these things, I can feel myself becoming anxious.

In response, I start rushing through the cooking process: I’ll chop a little bit faster and pace around the kitchen more quickly as if the extra minute or two that I save is going to make any material difference in my ability to perform my work later.

There are always things that need to be done. The list is endless.

We can often reason quite convincingly why we must rush to finish what we’re doing in order to get to the next one sooner.

In his book 4,000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman cautions readers about the diminishing returns of such an approach to life: “Productivity is a trap. Becoming more efficient just makes you more rushed, and trying to clear the decks simply makes them fill up again faster.”

I could cook faster and get back to work sooner. I could rush to work faster on my current project, so I can get to work on another one sooner. Ad infinitum.

But is it really worth the mounting pile of compromises that must be made — the hasty execution, the constant sense that there is never enough time, the unwillingness to pause and enjoy the moment?