August 3, 2005
Yesterday over my lunch break, I ran my dog Chase to the vet to have some stitches removed (don’t worry, it was nothing serious), and raced back to the office just in time to microwave some leftovers and gobble them down at my desk. Of course, I was reading and eating at the same time, like usually happens when I’m busy. Which seems like it’s all the time.
Now that’s not a complaint, mind you. It’s an example of how hurried our lives have become. How we women have elevated multi-tasking and multi-minding to an art form. And how desperately we need some quiet time.
I’m talking about the slow movement today. About an emerging trend to consciously take things slower, more deliberately, and more mindfully. And no one needs it more than today’s women.
It started several years ago in Italy with the slow food movement (www.slowfood.com) that believes in the joys of eating locally grown produce and teaching consumers about culinary heritage. It’s spawned sisters in Slow Schooling and Slow Parenting (www.hyper-parenting.com/montrealgazette.htm), Slow Cities (www.citymayors.com/environment/slow_cities.html), and now, thanks again to the Italians, there’s Slow Sex (www.macleans.ca).
Researchers say that today’s women get 90 minutes less sleep than we did a century ago, largely due to our increased workload. With careers, families, friends, homes, and community involvement, it’s tough to find time to be slow. In fact, in today’s language and lifestyle, slow is seen as a curse.
Dial-up? Too slow. Speed limit? Too slow. Cooking a meal from scratch? Too slow.
So here are some suggestions, from a new book about the slow movement by Carl Honore, In Praise of Slowness: How a Worldwide Movement is Changing the Cult of Speed:
• Get involved with a slow hobby: Yoga, painting, gardening. It’s not like you can will those flowers to grow any faster…
• Don’t wait until the weekends to do all your chores: Spread them out over the course of the week so that weekends can truly be enjoyed.
• Stop watching the clock: Shut off that alarm clock on weekends and let your body dictate when to get up, when to eat, when to take that well-deserved nap…
• Buy fruit and veggies from a Farmer’s Market: Take the time to really learn about the food you’re about to eat, talk with the (slow-appreciating) farmers, and then…
• Cook a great meal and eat it at the table, not in front of the TV: I am so guilty of this! No books, no newspapers, no computers. Just an old-fashioned meal at the table with, gasp! real conversation.
• Take a slow-down vacation: Instead of packing in every tourist site, choose a spot where you can simply relax, walk to interesting shops and restaurants, or sit and snap for your next frozen cocktail.
• Chop your To Do List in half: Get rid of things you don’t enjoy. Life’s too short!
Here are my two thoughts on all this. One – Hallelujah and amen, sister. I need some of this! And two, as marketers, our instinct is to spread our message everywhere. But there are places that humans simply need peace and quiet with no commercials, no interruptions and no uninvited guests. Respect the limits and consumers will not respond with the rage they’re showing to those advertisers who don’t understand the boundaries.
G’day! :
I'm aboard, happy to meet cool people here.
Hasta la vista.
http://www.prestocash.com.ar -
Cash
Posted by: AppantDatry | February 09, 2008 at 12:54 PM