When author Bill Powers married his wife, they celebrated in an unconventional way. Unable to sync their schedules enough to take a honeymoon together, they opted for a "uni-moon" and each went solo.

"A uni-moon is one of those terrible modern trends of taking individual honeymoons attached to work trips," Powers told HuffPost Live's Nancy Redd on Tuesday. "So she took hers in the Dominican Republic, and I took mine in Paris because we couldn't coordinate our honeymoons together because of over-scheduling."

Depriving himself of a romantic getaway with his new bride turned into a wake-up call for Powers, he explained.

"This is the sort of busy trap that a lot of us are stuck in, and that was really kind of the turning point, when I was sitting there in Paris by myself, realizing this is just not the way to live," he said.

The problem came down to the couple's increasingly busy work lives.

"Part of the issue was that my wife, Melissa, was actually working more at first, because she had a new job at the United Nations, whereas my goal was to work less, so that added some definite tension into our relationship," Powers said.

But when they decided change was imperative, Powers' wife began working from home more often and the couple scaled down, got rid of most of their possessions and moved into a "micro-apartment" that was a fraction of the size of their previous home. Powers documents their journey in his new book, New Slow City: Living Simply in the World's Fastest City.

"Just the fact that we started to have more time together, and I had more time, and it definitely improved our relationship, because you're not rushing from one thing to the next. You have more romantic evenings together," he said.

With more date nights, plus a few "Internet sabbaticals" and "staycations" in their neighborhood, Powers said his slower life has made all the difference.