{"id":4508,"date":"2025-01-25T09:22:32","date_gmt":"2025-01-25T15:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/?p=4508"},"modified":"2025-01-25T09:22:45","modified_gmt":"2025-01-25T15:22:45","slug":"slow-productivity-in-school-part-2-do-fewer-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/2025\/01\/25\/slow-productivity-in-school-part-2-do-fewer-things\/","title":{"rendered":"Slow Productivity in School, Part 2: Do Fewer Things"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In my last article we discussed the problem of pseudo-productivity in school<\/a>. Popularly called busywork, this pseudo-productivity of the factory model of education presents a fairly straightforward analogy to the pseudo-productivity of the office. In his book Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout<\/a><\/em>, Cal Newport diagnosed the problem of our crazy busy work culture: \u201cThe relentless overload that\u2019s wearing us down is generated by a belief that \u2018good\u2019 work requires increasing busyness\u2013faster responses to email and chats, more meetings, more tasks, more hours\u201d (7). Then he proposed an altogether different approach to work, characterized by slowness rather than the frantic pace of hustle culture. He defines \u201cslow productivity\u201d as\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cA philosophy for organizing knowledge work efforts in a sustainable and meaningful manner, based on the following three principles:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Do fewer things.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Work at a natural pace.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Obsess over quality.\u201d (41)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

    In this series of articles we\u2019re unpacking and reapplying Newport\u2019s insights to see how they bring to light some of the core principles of classical education. For instance, the phrase multum non multa <\/em>has often been used to emphasize an approach similar to his principles: depth over breadth, and quality over quantity. The phrase comes from a letter of Pliny the Younger 7.9-15 and originally refers to his advice for a student to read much, not many things. This could be taken to mean that he read the right books or the best books over and over again rather than simply reading more. It thus stands for an important classical prioritization of the quality of material read or studied, over simply checking the box of more subjects or books, regardless of their importance or enduring value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In this article we\u2019re going to unpack Cal Newport\u2019s first principle of doing fewer things and apply it to the students\u2019 work of learning in school. Along the way we\u2019ll discuss some of the complex problems around what this means for the number of subjects, the structure of the school day, and the type and number of assignments we give to students. Let\u2019s dig in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    In the context of knowledge work on the job, Cal Newport explains how his revolutionary idea of doing fewer things might play itself out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n

    \u201cStrive to reduce your obligations to the point where you can easily imagine accomplishing them with time to spare. Leverage this reduced load to more fully embrace and advance the small number of projects that matter most.\u201d (53)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

    As I\u2019ve said before, Newport\u2019s book will likely be helpful and inspiring to classical school administrators as well. The dizzying variety of demands involved in running a small school can be overwhelming. Cal Newport\u2019s not alone in the business and productivity workspace to argue for focused effort on the work that matters most and the ruthless elimination of secondary obligations that are really distractions. It\u2019s almost a mantra, even if still widely unpracticed. For instance, in their book The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth behind Extraordinary Results<\/a><\/em>, Gary W. Keller and Jay Papasan made the best-seller lists by arguing that \u201csuccess isn\u2019t a game that\u2019s won by whoever does the most,\u201d but that instead people should ask themselves, \u201cWhat’s the ONE Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?\u201d In this context, Newport\u2019s \u201cDo fewer things\u201d feels almost modest and more realistic in its understatement.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Doing fewer things perhaps resonates most obviously with the multum non multa<\/em> saying. I like to think of it most of all as embracing depth, not breadth. If you try to do too much in work or in school, you will often end up doing shallow, incomplete work of questionable quality. Committing to doing fewer things feels scary, as if we are abandoning the societal value accorded the sacred claims of \u201cproductivity\u201d in the first place. But it actually enables the type of focus and attention necessary for the true productivity or accomplishment that moves the needle (to invoke a worn-out business cliche\u2026). As Newport\u2019s explanation reminds us, some projects matter more than others, and it can easily be demonstrated that this is the case in school too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Busyness and relentless activities do not produce great students. In the tradition there was a recognition that certain studies would serve as the foundation of other studies. The liberal arts were the \u201ctools of learning,\u201d according to Dorothy Sayers, that would enable the student to work as a craftsman of general learning and knowledge and therefore continue learning well for life. The problem of modern education was focusing on teaching \u201csubjects\u201d rather than these tools, and thus wasting labor. We can see how one of the central clarion calls of our educational reform movement (Sayers\u2019 \u201cThe Lost Tools of Learning\u201d essay<\/a>) resonates with the call to do fewer things. What are those things we should do, according to Sayers? Grammar, dialectic and rhetoric. And all the subjects that you might choose are merely grist for the mill. The focus of the educator should be on the students\u2019 accomplishment or productivity in handling these tools.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This is one helpful way of approaching the challenge, but it requires the consistent intentionality of the teacher to work against the grain of her culture in a purely mental way. If the curriculum writers and designers consistently pull her back to the rigmarole of manyness over muchness, it is worth questioning how much has really changed here. This has led some classical education leaders to radical proposals like putting everything on block periods and cutting classes down to the bare minimum of \u201cclassical subjects.\u201d The obvious problem with this is which subjects to cut. It may be easier in the upper grades to collapse history, literature and Bible or theology into one another through an integrated humanities course, as does the Omnibus series of Veritas Press<\/a>. But in this case, we have not really saved time or done fewer things; we have simply combined or grouped these areas of study together. In the meantime, we have actually added to the number of subjects or courses studied by introducing philosophical texts into K-12 education, along with logic and rhetoric courses.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In the lower grades we might ask what we are cutting with equal, if not stronger, force. Surely, we are not cutting phonics or grammar, penmanship or composition, history, literature or Bible? Perhaps we should cut mathematics and science? Or the unnecessary fine arts, like music and drawing? Are there any advocates for cutting PE? How about recess? What does \u201cdo fewer things\u201d and multum non multa<\/em> practically mean in a modern school? Is it really classical to have fewer subjects? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    My answer to the last question, and the answer of at least one stream of the classical tradition, is no. The problem is not the number of subjects but the approach to assignments and the pace and quality of student work. Quintilian, the famed Roman rhetoric teacher of the 1st century, provides the most ancient and authoritative voice for this embrace of manyness in subjects, if not in assignments. In his Institutes of Oratory<\/em> Quintilian commends the importance of early training from the grammarian, and in that context emphasizes just how many subjects of books the student should read and learn from in his early years:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n

    \u201cNor is it sufficient to have read the poets only; every class of writers must be studied, not simply for matter, but for words, which often receive their authority from writers. Nor can grammar be complete without a knowledge of music, since the grammarian has to speak of meter and rhythm; nor, if he is ignorant of astronomy, can he understand the poets, who, to say nothing of other matters, so often allude to the rising and setting of the stars in marking the seasons; nor must he be unacquainted with philosophy, both on account of numbers of passages, in almost all poems, drawn from the most abstruse subtleties of physical investigation, and also on account of Empedocles among the Greeks, and Varro and Lucretius among the Latins, who have committed the precepts of philosophy to verse.\u201d (1.4.4; Translated by John Selby Watson, edited by Curtis Dozier and Lee Honeycutt.)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

    When Quintilian says that \u201cevery class of writers must be studied,\u201d he encompasses the breadth of a humane and liberal education, not a bare-bones trivium training (without sufficient \u201cgrist for the mill\u201d; let us give Dorothy Sayers her due\u2026). We can hear the liberal arts categories, especially the quadrivium, endorsed explicitly in his mention of music and astronomy. And he specifically goes beyond those categories even to embrace the reading of philosophy, not after formal study of grammar and then rhetoric is completed, but before and during. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    It\u2019s passages like these that show how insufficient a bare bones view of what it meant for ancients to study the trivium is, from the point of view of what we in modern times call \u201csubjects.\u201d Quintilian\u2019s grammar stage (if we can call it that) embraced wide and humane reading across the subjects. We might even say that it encourages breadth over depth in reading, contrary to the apt phrase of Pliny the Younger. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    If any would claim that we are overstraining Quintilian\u2019s context to apply it to the argument about the number of subjects for young students, we can point to an even clearer context where Quintilian specifically endorses sending our young orator in training to the teachers of grammar, music, geometry, acting and dance, and then answers the common objection of his day: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n

    \u201cIt is a common question whether, supposing all these things [grammar and music and geometry and acting and dance] are to be learned, they can all be taught and acquired at the same time, for some deny that this is possible, as the mind must be confused and wearied by so many studies of different tendency for which neither the understanding, nor the body, nor time itself, can suffice. Even though mature age may endure such labor, it is said, that of childhood ought not to be thus burdened.\u201d (1.12.1)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

    Here we see him specifically take up the number of \u201csubjects\u201d studied at one and the same time, i.e. the question of a student\u2019s course load, as it were. The supposed confusion and weariness might mimic our own concerns for leisure, contemplation and restful learning. His answer is so stunning and helpful that it is worth reproducing in full:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n

    \u201c2. But these reasoners do not understand how great the power of the human mind is, that mind which is so busy and active and which directs its attention, so to speak, to every quarter so that it cannot even confine itself to do only one thing, but bestows its force upon several, not merely in the same day, but at the same moment. 3. Do not players on the harp, for example, exert their memory and attend to the sound of their voice and the various inflections of it, while at the same time they strike part of the strings with their right hand and pull, stop, or let loose others with their left, while not even their foot is idle, but beats time to their playing, all these acts being done simultaneously? 4. Do not we advocates, when surprised by a sudden necessity to plead, say one thing while we are thinking of what is to follow, and while at the very same moment, the invention of arguments, the choice of words, the arrangement of matter, gesture, delivery, look, and attitude are necessarily objects of our attention? If all these considerations of so varied a nature are forced, as by a single effort, before our mental vision, why may we not divide the hours of the day among different kinds of study, especially as variety itself refreshes and recruits the mind, while on the contrary, nothing is more annoying than to continue at one uniform labor? Accordingly, writing is relieved by reading, and the tedium of reading itself is relieved by changes of subject. 5. However many things we may have done, we are yet to a certain degree fresh for that which we are going to begin. Who, on the contrary, would not be stupefied if he were to listen to the same teacher of any art, whatever it might be, through the whole day? But by change a person will be recruited, as is the case with respect to food, by varieties of which the stomach is re-invigorated and is fed with several sorts less unsatisfactorily than with one. 6. Or let those objectors tell me what other mode there is of learning. Ought we to attend to the teacher of grammar only, and then to the teacher of geometry only, and cease to think, during the second course, of what we learned in the first? Should we then transfer ourselves to the musician, our previous studies being still allowed to escape us? Or while we are studying Latin, ought we to pay no attention to Greek? Or to make an end of my questions at once, ought we to do nothing but what comes last before us? \u201c<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

    \n

    \u201c7. So much more easy is it to do many things one after the other, than to do one thing for a long time.\u201d (1.12.2-6, 7; pp. 61-62)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

    In this passage Quintilian makes a lock tight argument for our common practice of packing in subjects in period blocks and shifting a student\u2019s attention from one to the other to make determinate progress in one, only to break off as fatigue begins to set in and start onto something new. While we may decry the school bell, as savoring of the factory, there is a sense in which this practice of the periodization of school into discrete subjects is both classical and incredibly powerful. Charlotte Mason<\/a> had likewise repeated the Victorian proverb, \u201cA change is as good as a rest.\u201d It may even have been derived\u00a0from this context, as Mason herself found an endorsement of narration in the early pages of Quintilian and her own familiar analogy of food and appetite for student learning, with variety as increasing the appetite or curiosity of the student. This is Quintilian\u2019s early take on the science of human attention<\/a>, as we have since explained through neuroscience: novelty increases both motivation and attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Does this mean block periods are bad? Not necessarily. The nature of the complex tasks, like socratic dialogue or writing, may actually benefit from longer stretches of work, especially for older students. But it is worth questioning whether the productivity claims of focusing on one project over multiple hour blocks apply to the education of children. As Quintilian concludes, it is easier to do many things, one after the other, than to persist in a single activity or project for a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    If, then, we have dismissed the spurious application of \u201cDo Fewer Things\u201d to cutting the number of subjects and the periods of modern school, what does that leave us with? Cut busywork! Cut the number of assignments down and instead ensure that students complete quality, complex work. Replace the endless hamster wheel of worksheets with written narrations<\/a> and essay responses. Instead of coloring in preprinted outlines, have students develop an eye for careful copywork and artistry of their own.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In the next articles on working at a natural pace and obsessing over quality, we\u2019ll explain further what this application of \u201cDo Fewer Things\u201d looks like as we embrace depth over breadth in our approach to work, rather than cutting important subjects from K-12 education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In my last article we discussed the problem of pseudo-productivity in school. Popularly called busywork, this pseudo-productivity of the factory model of education presents a fairly straightforward analogy to the pseudo-productivity of the office. In his book Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout, Cal Newport diagnosed the problem of our crazy busy 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Productivity in School, Part 2: Do Fewer Things •<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Cal Newport's idea of slow productivity applies to classical education and resonates with the principle of multum non multa, but how?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/2025\/01\/25\/slow-productivity-in-school-part-2-do-fewer-things\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Slow Productivity in School, Part 2: Do Fewer Things •\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Cal Newport's idea of slow productivity applies to classical education and resonates with the principle of multum non multa, but how?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" 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Barney","author_link":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/author\/jasonmbarney\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"In my last article we discussed the problem of pseudo-productivity in school. Popularly called busywork, this pseudo-productivity of the factory model of education presents a fairly straightforward analogy to the pseudo-productivity of the office. In his book Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout, Cal Newport diagnosed the problem of our crazy busy…","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa7K1D-1aI","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4490,"url":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/2025\/01\/04\/slow-productivity-in-school-part-1-the-problem-of-pseudo-productivity\/","url_meta":{"origin":4508,"position":0},"title":"Slow Productivity in School, Part 1: The Problem of Pseudo-Productivity","author":"Jason Barney","date":"January 4, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Classical educators can often be found touting the Latin phrase multum, non multa, in favor of various revolutionary proposals to adopt quality over quantity, depth over breadth, much over many things. (See for instance this article on Memoria Press by Andrew Campbell, or Christopher Perron\u2019s lecture on Classical Academic Press.)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Modern Research"","block_context":{"text":"Modern Research","link":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/category\/modern-research\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Slow-Productivity-Email-Banner.jpg?fit=600%2C200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Slow-Productivity-Email-Banner.jpg?fit=600%2C200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Slow-Productivity-Email-Banner.jpg?fit=600%2C200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5076,"url":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/2025\/06\/21\/slow-productivity-in-school-part-3-work-at-a-natural-pace\/","url_meta":{"origin":4508,"position":1},"title":"Slow Productivity in School: Part 3, Work at a Natural Pace","author":"Jason Barney","date":"June 21, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"In this series, I am taking my cue from Cal Newport's helpful book Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout and applying his insights to our expectations for student work in classical Christian schools. Like the modern office, forms of pseudo-productivity dominate the modern school system\u2013a fact that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Modern Research"","block_context":{"text":"Modern Research","link":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/category\/modern-research\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Slow-Productivity-Email-Banner.jpg?fit=600%2C200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Slow-Productivity-Email-Banner.jpg?fit=600%2C200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Slow-Productivity-Email-Banner.jpg?fit=600%2C200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5129,"url":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/2025\/07\/12\/slow-productivity-in-school-part-4-obsess-over-quality\/","url_meta":{"origin":4508,"position":2},"title":"Slow Productivity in School: Part 4, Obsess Over Quality","author":"Jason Barney","date":"July 12, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"In this series on Slow Productivity in School, we\u2019ve been exploring the paradox of festina lente (\u201chasten slowly\u201d). When it comes to the work of learning, sometimes you must go slow to go fast. Or, perhaps more accurately, you must slow down to be truly productive. 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In less than a century, modern technology has enabled us to convert a planet with a surface area of 197 million square miles into a global neighborhood.\u00a0 In 1750, for example, it took 4-6 weeks to sail by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Classical Tradition"","block_context":{"text":"Classical Tradition","link":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/category\/classical-tradition\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Hiker-.jpg?fit=612%2C408&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Hiker-.jpg?fit=612%2C408&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Hiker-.jpg?fit=612%2C408&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":128,"url":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/2018\/11\/23\/deep-reading-in-education\/","url_meta":{"origin":4508,"position":4},"title":"The Importance of Deep Reading in Education","author":"Jason Barney","date":"November 23, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Deep reading is the type of reading that involves one\u2019s undivided attention in a sustained manner to tackle a long-form book, like a novel. The feeling cultivated by deep reading is that of being lost in a book, taken to new worlds, enraptured by an alien train of thought. While\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Modern Research"","block_context":{"text":"Modern Research","link":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/category\/modern-research\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"an elegant oval library, the perfect place for deep reading","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/oval-library.jpg?fit=1200%2C455&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/oval-library.jpg?fit=1200%2C455&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/oval-library.jpg?fit=1200%2C455&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/oval-library.jpg?fit=1200%2C455&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/oval-library.jpg?fit=1200%2C455&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4245,"url":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/2024\/04\/06\/ancient-wisdom-for-the-new-economy\/","url_meta":{"origin":4508,"position":5},"title":"Ancient Wisdom for the New Economy","author":"Patrick Egan","date":"April 6, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Our educational renewal movement comes at a peculiar time in history. Classical education around the globe plugs us into something the predates many of the movements that shape the conventional educational assumptions of our day. 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