Slow is smooth, smooth is fast
Written on: Jul 27th 2025
“Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast”
That is the quote from the F1 movie I watched Friday. It got me thinking though. Because lately, that’s exactly how life has been feeling and how I want it to feel.
This theme popped up when I read a blog called Always Optimising, Never Arriving. I’ll plug that in. But it made me reflect on something I’ve been quietly struggling with for a while now.
I am always. fucking. optimising.
Optimising for views.
For sleep quality.
For calories.
For productivity.
For better outreach.
For higher-paying jobs.
For more effective content.
For stronger lifts at the gym.
For a perfect Sunday routine.
I guess we all can agree to all of this isn’t it? Even a lot of people I meet mention that how are you so productive, I mean on surface level I am. But really deep down “Exhausted”.
So I decided to do a little exercise by noting down the tabs opened in my life’s window using up my brain’s RAM. (Sorry lil Technical)
Here’s the Weekly breakdown (btw, everyone has same 168 hrs in a week)
1. Shower + cooking + chores: 1–2 hours/day = ~14 hrs/week
2. Actual work (let’s be real, 5 hrs/day): ~25 hrs/week
3. Content creation: 10–12 hrs/week
4. Gym + Running: ~7 hrs/week (Lately on hold, resuming tomorrow got a PT for accountability)
5. Side Business/Collaborations: 4–5 hrs/week
And that was just the rough cut. I didn’t even add in errands, calls, catching up with family, or the random distractions that pop up in a week.
This got weird when I asked,
But Tanmay, When do You breathe?
Every hour felt accounted for. Every goal had metrics. Even recovery had a recovery score(thanks to Whoop). It is all numbers isn’t it? Even sleep is to be optimized. And suddenly, life feels like one big Dashboard with all the KPIs I need to meet by Quarter.
So this weekend, I am taking a pause. Taking it real slow.
let’s call it “The Anti-Productivity Weekend”
I made a conscious decision No work. No Content(except this Newsletter). No calls. No cooking. No effort.
I survived on takeaways. I skipped my workouts. I gave myself permission to do absolutely nothing(suddenly feels like a 5 star ad).
What I did instead?
Watched Frozen 1, Frozen 2, Lion King, Mufasa, and Up. Back-to-back. Thanks to my Disney+ access I got back. I just became a full-blown cartoon consumer.
And before you judge me, in my defence I am a huge Musical fan and hence I love watching Frozen 1 especially.
(Let it go…. the cold didn’t Bother me anyway iykyk)
Today is Sunday. I’m about to head out for a Laser Tag game. And guess what?
I feel good. I feel rested. I feel excited to get back to work tomorrow.
Of course, there were tiny moments when my brain whispered, “Just one email?” or “Just check the sponsorship draft?” But I shut it down. I chose to waste time, mindfully.
And for once, I didn’t care about recovery scores or whether I was maintaining my macros. I just took a breather. And because of this a weird sense of mental clarity is back.
And if you read my previous newsletter my eye starts twitching when I am too stressed or overworked, it’s gone.
Classic Comparison Trap - The Jealousy Highway
(This is the mental Clarity I got)
Jealousy. We all feel it. Especially when someone’s on the path we want to be on. When someone’s speeding past us on the same highway, hitting milestones we’re chasing.
But this is normal, it’s normal to be jealous and want something good for me. But what is even tricker than the above feeling is when that person is someone close to us. A friend. A collaborator.
Then we start judging ourselves: “I shouldn’t feel jealous. I’m such a bad person. I should be happy for them.”
That second layer? That judgment of the feeling? That’s what makes it unbearable.
Here’s the analogy that helped me make peace with it.
Imagine I’m on a highway. Speed limit is 120. I’m driving at 20. Another car zooms past at 110. That’s someone who is just faster right now. The jealousy is me wanting to be in that car.
But when the person in that car is your friend, suddenly the emotion feels wrong. Like I should be happy for them. But emotions don’t follow that logic. They just arise.
The trick is to name it. Accept it. Then move on.
Like this spidey experiment. Short detour,
so a bunch of people who were afraid of spiders were called to show a spider. Half of them were taken to the lab directly. The other half were asked to label their fear, how they feel seeing the spider. And the result was most who talked about the feeling aloud, there cortisol (stress levels) were way lesser compared to the one’s who went in directly.
back to the highway
Passengers in My Vehicle
Now, keeping the highway analogy going what’s stopping me from going faster?
It’s not always about the car. Sometimes, it’s the passengers.
Passengers like Phone addiction, Perfectionism, Mental fatigue, Optimising things that don’t need to be Even “good” things like cooking, gym, or Netflix.
Some of these are hard to let go because they’re tied to emotion. Like a broken pen gifted by your dad when you topped your class. It doesn’t work anymore. But you still keep it.
Same with these patterns. They have meaning. We need to acknowledge that meaning before we try to eject them from the vehicle. To speed up.
Arrival First. Optimization Later.
Think about Apple. They didn’t wait until the MacBook was perfect. They shipped. Then improved. That’s my mindset now.
I’m choosing to launch my MVP (Minimum Viable Product). In my case, that’s the MAP community Moving Abroad Pathway. (Join Waitlist, shameless plug ;))
Not aiming for the perfectly polished version. But the one that is live. It’s okay even if it is me going through my notes just turning on my camera. I can always optimise later.
Because only when I get to point A, I can come back and fix the road behind me.
And my vision with this community is that it would be one of the biggest globally recognised community of high performing individuals who chose to move abroad, chose discomfort and now are on the most amazing quest of their life.
So, this week, I’m letting go of Perfectionism, Pressure to cook, Pressure to optimize. I’m building. But slowly. Smoothly.
Because the slow lane is always open.
And sometimes, that’s exactly where I need to be just to chill and then crank up the 5th gear and move to the fast one.
Go out or stay in, whatever you do
Take that weekend off (you need it, trust me)
Whenever you’re ready, here are some ways I can help you:
#1. Strategic Advisory call: Get on a 50-minute strategic advisory call with me to break through a current personal or career roadblock.
Gain a high-impact mental model to navigate your challenge with clarity and confidence. Reframe obstacles into leverage points that accelerate your growth. Walk away with a precise action plan that gets you moving without unnecessary friction.
#2 My take on University Rankings
Short Answer: it won’t matter.
Long Answer: Watch here.