Reading at Sloth Pace: In Defence of Doing One Thing Slowly

A three-toed sloth moves about four metres a minute through the canopy when it is actually trying. It processes one meal for a fortnight. It descends to the ground once a week and treats that as a significant expedition.

Everything about the animal argues that speed is a cost, not a virtue, and that the correct rate for any activity is the slowest rate that still gets the job done. Dragonflies argue the exact opposite with equal conviction, which is why both of them are on this site.

So every post here shows two reading times. The first is the usual arithmetic: words divided by 220 a minute. The second is the sloth estimate, which is ten times longer, and which assumes you stop, look out of the window, reconsider a sentence and come back to it.

There is no feature to enforce this. There is no timer. The sloth estimate is simply printed next to the fast one as a reminder that the fast one is a choice.

Take the long number. The dragonflies will still be here, hovering, when you get to the end.