Who remembers the 1969 song In the Year 2525 by Zager and Evans? Back in school when it was presented to us, it made something with the, I remember well.

We got to the end of not 2525, but 2025. Just some days remaining.

As with Orwell’s 1984, Huxley’s Brave New World and Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Zager and Evans predictions are more or less spot on!

From the whole degrading of our senses (and their use), becoming motionless at a point where machines are “doing the work for you”, to man and woman only “may find each other” (managed by machines, apps and algorithms), ending up taking “everything this old earth can give” and “put back nothing”.

In the end, man has cried a billion years (and doesn’t know for what). So what to make out of this right now? To be honest, I don’t know. But I have a feeling (or 2-3). The song, these lines give me a feeling (or my brain is anticipating it).

And following this emotion (energy in motion) I know one thing for sure: I need to write. And need to write more in 2026. I guess it comes down to the searching-hope-in-an-imploding-world-order thing.

Let’s start.

Today at a Glance

• Slowing Down

• The NeuroScience behind Slow Productivity

• How I Coach Do Slow Productivity

Slowing Down

I do not have a specific coaching client in mind today. When I talk with my wife, friends, business partners, employees and clients, they all say the same:

Great ideas, real breakthroughs usually don’t come in times of hustle, of being too busy. They come when walking in nature, cooking, putting children to sleep for an hour (that is forced defocusing at its best).

We got to defocus. We got to stop being busy. Slowing Down is an essential tool for productivity and performance.

This topic seemed like a good fit to me for the holidays and change of years into 2026.

The NeuroScience Behind Slow Productivity

Cal Newport published a book about this topic, titled … Slow Productivity.

In it Newport describes the intellectual process behind big (and nobel price winning) ideas from famous scientist, writers, creators.

Famously, even on the very edge of discovery in radioactivity, Marie Curie took a long family vacation. Or Einstein, having the habit of taking long walks (10km) daily and taking naps after lunch.

Meta-analysis of task-switching studies (Wickens et al.'s 2015) showed that cognitive switching costs scale with complexity. Every new project brings meetings, emails, and coordination. A crowded project list directly undermines the sustained attention required for breakthroughs. This was shown even for brief switches (around 0.1-0.5s) which then compound to accumulating losses of productivity.

A Meta-analysis of 117 studies (Sio and Ormerod's, 2009) showed significant results for the Incubation effect. The effect describes improved performance when people step away from complex problems, as in deliberately scheduling high‑quality breaks. This might allow for unconscious processing, reducing the eyeball on ineffective strategies, and reorganizing problem representations and ideas.

How I Coach Do Slow Productivity

I don’ really coach it, like in a tool kind of way. But I recommend it, of course.

It works best when:

• Focus on insight and divergent-thinking tasks, rather than for routine, algorithmic problems (Incubation shows stronger effects for the first ones).

• The activity you chose for pause should be dissimilar to the original task (to avoid interference).

• Your Cognitive load during the break shouldn’t be very strong.

• This could be a walk in nature, light sports, cooking, maybe working in the garden, things like this.

• Make a commitment and have a clear intention for returning to the problem .

You get the idea. So, bottom line:

"Rest is not a pause from productivity; it is productivity." - Steve Jobs

Let that sink in - but then:

Take action! See rest as part your productivity routine and start owning it!

That’s it for this month and the years 2025!

Me and my amazing team are doing a 3 week break from posting on Linked-In, as well as the Newsletter.

We start posting on Linked-In again on Monday, 12th of January.

The next newsletter edition will come out on Saturday, the 17th of January 2026.

Take care, Happy Holidays!

Yours,

Moritz

PS:

Can you rarely make time for physical activity or regeneration? Do youI feel emotionally unstable and have difficulties to stay calm under pressure? Is managing people emotionally and energetically draining for you?

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