For a long time, I believed speed was the answer to almost everything.
Respond faster.
Decide quicker.
Move before hesitation turns into delay.
Speed felt like competence. It looked like confidence. And in many professional settings, it was quietly rewarded. The faster you replied, the more reliable you seemed. The faster you shipped, the more capable you appeared.
So I leaned into it.
I replied to messages as soon as they arrived. I jumped into decisions without sitting with them. I equated momentum with progress and urgency with importance.
What I didn’t realise then was that speed has a way of solving the wrong problems – while creating new ones in the background.
The Illusion of Progress
Speed gives us a sense of control. When things feel uncertain or messy, moving fast feels reassuring. It creates motion, and motion feels like progress.
But motion isn’t the same as direction.
I remember a phase where my days were packed with quick decisions and rapid responses. I felt productive, even accomplished. And yet, by the end of the week, I struggled to point to anything meaningful I had actually moved forward.
The real work – the thinking, the shaping, the questioning – kept getting postponed in favour of what felt urgent.
Emails were answered.
Messages were cleared.
Tasks were “handled.”
But the underlying problems? They remained untouched.
Speed helped me manage symptoms. It never addressed the root cause.
When Fast Becomes Reactive
The faster we move, the less time we give ourselves to think. And over time, speed shifts us from being intentional to being reactive.
I noticed this most clearly in how I communicated.
Quick replies replaced thoughtful responses.
Immediate answers replaced better questions.
Efficiency replaced clarity.
This is where speed quietly overlaps with availability – a theme I explored earlier in “The Hidden Cost of Always Being Available.” Constant availability demands speed. And speed, in turn, trains us to respond instead of reflect.
When everything is treated as urgent, nothing gets the depth it deserves.
Speed Rewards the Visible, Not the Important
One of the most uncomfortable realisations for me was this:
Speed is often rewarded because it’s visible – not because it’s valuable.
A fast reply is easy to notice.
A quick decision looks decisive.
A rapid turnaround appears impressive.
Deep thinking, on the other hand, is invisible. So is restraint. So is choosing not to respond immediately.
But most meaningful outcomes – strong strategies, resilient systems, thoughtful leadership – are built slowly. They require space, context, and patience.
Speed may help you cross items off a list.
Slowness helps you choose the right list.
What Speed Actually Solves
Speed is excellent for:
- Emergencies
- Execution after clarity
- Repetitive, low-stakes decisions
But we often apply speed to situations that require the opposite:
- Ambiguity
- Strategy
- People problems
- Long-term thinking
When we rush through these, we don’t save time – we defer the cost.
That cost shows up later as:
- Rework
- Misalignment
- Burnout
- Frustration that something still feels “off”
Slowing Down Without Losing Momentum
This isn’t an argument against speed altogether. It’s an argument for using speed intentionally, not reflexively.
What helped me was learning to pause before accelerating.
Before responding, I started asking:
- Does this need a response right now?
- Is speed helping here, or is it just making me feel useful?
- What problem am I actually trying to solve?
Sometimes, the most effective move was not to act immediately – but to wait, think, and then respond with clarity.
Ironically, this made my work better and more efficient. Fewer follow-ups. Clearer expectations. Better decisions that didn’t need constant correction.
Practical Shifts That Made a Difference
Here are a few changes that helped me step out of the speed trap:
- Delay decisions that shape directionIf a decision affects long-term outcomes, give it breathing room.
- Create space before respondingEven a short pause can turn a reaction into a response.
- Separate urgency from importanceNot everything that’s loud is important. Not everything important is loud.
- Value clarity over quicknessA clear answer once is better than ten fast clarifications later.
- Protect thinking time as fiercely as meeting timeThinking is work – even if it doesn’t look like it.
A Different Kind of Effectiveness
Speed makes us feel productive.
Slowness makes us effective.
And effectiveness is quieter. It doesn’t announce itself with notifications or instant replies. It shows up later – in better outcomes, stronger relationships, and decisions that don’t need to be revisited again and again.
Learning to slow down wasn’t easy. It went against habits I had built and incentives I had internalised. But it changed how I work, how I decide, and how I show up.
Not everything needs to move fast.
Some things need to move right.
And sometimes, the bravest thing you can do in a culture obsessed with speed – is to pause.
