“The slower you do things,” a very wise person once told me, “the more time you seem to have.”

This is excellent advice. I tend to rush through things — meals, museums, writing columns — on the mistaken belief that if I can just do everything faster, I’ll have more time for other things. It’s counterintuitive, of course, but it’s the reverse that’s true. Taking my time on things — going slowly through a meal or a novel, typing these words with care and deliberation — is how I end up, somehow, with a lot more time on my hands.