We live in a culture that worships speed. Faster output, faster growth, faster everything…as if slowing down were a personal failing rather than a skill. This week’s guest thinks we’ve got it backwards.
Elizabeth Svoboda is a science journalist and the author of The Art of Pacing, a book that digs into why sustainable effort is what actually gets us where we’re trying to go, not constant intensity.
In our conversation, we talk about where our obsession with speed comes from, why “pacing” gets dismissed as code for slacking off, and what it actually looks like to build a rhythm of work and rest that holds up over the long haul.
This one hit close to home for me. A lot of what we talk about on this show comes back to the tension between doing more and staying well — and pacing might be the most practical answer to that tension I’ve come across yet. We get into the research behind it, but we also get into the harder, more personal question: why do so many of us know this intellectually and still can’t seem to practice it?
If you’ve ever burned out chasing a deadline, or felt guilty for taking a break you clearly needed, this episode is for you.
