Why Slowing Down Can Lead to Better Decisions in a Faster World

I have been using computers in a commercial environment since before Microsoft Windows even existed.

At the time, I was an engineering draftsman using a twin-screen CAD system. The menu sat on a small fluorescent green monitor while the drawing itself appeared on a large black and white screen beside it. Navigating the eye-watering menu system was achieved by a tiny joystick mounted atop a metal box that weighed roughly the same as a small child.

I still remember the day my employer, TICO Manufacturing, invested in a newer system. No more green screen. No more monochrome drawings. No more vicious joystick capable of removing skin from your knuckles if you caught it the wrong way.

It was on this new machine that Windows 3.1 was installed. It did not even load automatically. You had to type “win” into the command line to start it.

A marvel.

People regularly wandered over just to look at it. A small crowd gathering around a beige computer because it felt like we were seeing the future arrive in real time.

What may surprise you, however, is that despite spending most of my working life around computers, I never learned to touch-type.

Watching me work, younger colleagues often look genuinely concerned by my lack of keyboard discipline. Furrowed brows appear. Suggestions are offered. Tutorials recommended. Apparently, I should be typing much faster than I do.

To be fair, I type reasonably quickly. Certainly, quickly enough for me.

I have often been told that learning to touch-type would improve my productivity, improve my posture, and save valuable time. Perhaps they are right. Their advice is well intentioned.

I simply take a slightly different view.

Imagine driving to an appointment along an open motorway at 60 miles per hour. You are running slightly late and the temptation to push harder on the accelerator becomes obvious.

Now increase your speed to 80 miles per hour.

The surprising reality is that you will often arrive only a handful of minutes earlier, yet the increase in risk is dramatically higher. Your stopping distance increases. Your margin for error shrinks. Your stress levels rise. Small mistakes carry larger consequences.

What I am trying to say is that once you are already moving at pace, increasing your speed further can become a very poor strategy.

Modern life increasingly confuses speed with competence.

Everything now encourages us to move faster. Faster emails. Faster replies. Faster decisions. Faster opinions. Faster content. Faster meetings. Faster thinking.

Technology has made this possible.

I genuinely love technology. The sum total of human knowledge now sits at our fingertips. Complex mathematics can be solved instantly. Entire libraries fit inside a mobile phone. Artificial intelligence can now perform tasks that would have seemed like science fiction only a few years ago.

I am not naïve about any of this. I find it fascinating.

But technology is still only a tool.

As impressive as modern systems may appear, they are still simply tools we use to build, repair, solve problems, and communicate ideas. Somewhere along the line, however, many of us started mistaking speed for wisdom.

The two are not the same thing.

As I have grown older, I have found myself quietly returning to slower tools and older habits that many people would probably consider outdated.

Most of the thoughts you read here begin with two simple items: a pen and a sheet of paper.

For reasons I cannot entirely explain, my thinking becomes clearer when I write by hand. Ideas feel more deliberate. Problems seem easier to untangle. The physical act of writing forces the mind to slow down just enough for proper reasoning to catch up.

To add further insult to modern efficiency, I prefer using an ink pen and, thanks largely to age, increasingly write in cursive.

All of this slows me down.

And I think that may actually be the point.

Thinking by writing is nothing new. Entire books have been written on the relationship between handwriting and cognition. Yet instinctively, most of us already know this to be true. Some thoughts require space. Some decisions require patience. Some ideas deserve longer than a hurried response typed between meetings.

These days I find myself less interested in arriving first and more interested in arriving with confidence that the decision was properly considered.

The world will continue to accelerate around us. Artificial intelligence will become faster. Devices more powerful. Communication more immediate.

But I increasingly suspect that good judgement still moves at roughly the same speed it always has.