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A World Without Email Summary
About A World Without Email Book
A New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller
From New York Times bestselling author Cal Newport comes a bold vision for liberating workers from the tyranny of the inbox--and unleashing a new era of productivity.
Modern knowledge workers communicate constantly. Their days are defined by a relentless barrage of incoming messages and back-and-forth digital conversations--a state of constant, anxious chatter in which nobody can disconnect, and so nobody has the cognitive bandwidth to perform substantive work. There was a time when tools like email felt cutting edge, but a thorough review of current evidence reveals that the "hyperactive hive mind" workflow they helped create has become a productivity disaster, reducing profitability and perhaps even slowing overall economic growth. Equally worrisome, it makes us miserable. Humans are simply not wired for constant digital communication.
We have become so used to an inbox-driven workday that it's hard to imagine alternatives. But they do exist. Drawing on years of investigative reporting, author and computer science professor Cal Newport makes the case that our current approach to work is broken, then lays out a series of principles and concrete instructions for fixing it. In A World without Email, he argues for a workplace in which clear processes--not haphazard messaging--define how tasks are identified, assigned and reviewed. Each person works on fewer things (but does them better), and aggressive investment in support reduces the ever-increasing burden of administrative tasks. Above all else, important communication is streamlined, and inboxes and chat channels are no longer central to how work unfolds.
The knowledge sector's evolution beyond the hyperactive hive mind is inevitable. The question is not whether a world without email is coming (it is), but whether you'll be ahead of this trend. If you're a CEO seeking a competitive edge, an entrepreneur convinced your productivity could be higher, or an employee exhausted by your inbox, A World Without Email will convince you that the time has come for bold changes, and will walk you through exactly how to make them happen.
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Always keeping emails short is a simple rule, but the effects can be profound. Once you no longer think of email as a general-purpose tool for talking about anything at any time, its stranglehold on your attention will diminish.
CAL NEWPORT
603
The Hyperactive Hive Mind
There is an underlying belief, in the knowledge sector, that hyper-communication equals work. We are part of a workflow centered around ongoing conversations fueled by unstructured and unscheduled messages delivered through digital communication tools like email and instant messenger services.
Constantly switching tasks and responding to email fuels our human need to rationalize what is happening around us, often helping us flee from the more nuanced and complex reality.
581
A terrible way to extract value from human neurons
According to data gathered by the time-tracking software RescueTime
- Half of the users check communication applications like email or Slack every six minutes or less.
- The most common average checking time was once every minute.
- For half the users studied, the longest unbroken period of work was no more than forty minutes, with the most typical longest time being only twenty minutes.
- More than two-thirds of users never experienced an hour without an interruption.
- For business users, the average email volume was 126 messages per day.
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"A World Without Email : Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload" is a book authored by Cal Newport , a computer science professor at Georgetown University. In this book, Newport presents a bold vision for liberating workers from the tyranny of their inboxes and reimagining work in the digital age . According to Newport, email has become a source of endless distraction and stress, causing workers to waste time on unimportant messages and preventing them from focusing on deep and meaningful work.
Always keeping emails short is a simple rule, but the effects can be profound. Once you no longer think of email as a general-purpose tool for talking about anything at any time, its stranglehold on your attention will diminish.
CAL NEWPORT
15
Once we understand the contours of our frustrations with knowledge work, we recognize that we have the potential to make these efforts not only massively more productive but also massively more fulfilling and sustainable.
CAL NEWPORT
13
The Hyperactive Hive Mind
There is a belief that constant digital communication equals productivity. But switching between unstructured, unscheduled messages carries cognitive costs that reduce focus and value extraction.
Checking apps like email frequently fragments work into 20-40 minute blocks at most.
12
Email: the worst form of communication yet devised by humankind?
Bestselling author Cal Newport comes a bold vision for liberating workers from the tyranny of the inbox--and unleashing a new era of productivity.
Modern knowledge workers communicate constantly. Their days are defined by a relentless barrage of incoming messages and back-and-forth digital conversations--a state of constant, anxious chatter in which nobody can disconnect, and so nobody has the cognitive bandwidth to perform substantive work.
1
There was a time when tools like email felt cutting edge, but a thorough review of current evidence reveals that the hyperactive hive mind workflow they helped create has become a productivity disaster, reducing profitability and perhaps even slowing overall economic growth. Equally worrisome, it makes us miserable. Humans are simply not wired for constant digital communication.
1
We have become so used to an inbox-driven workday that it's hard to imagine alternatives. But they do exist. Drawing on years of investigative reporting, author and computer science professor Cal Newport makes the case that our current approach to work is broken, then lays out a series of principles and concrete instructions for fixing it. In A World without Email, he argues for a workplace in which clear processes--not haphazard messaging--define how tasks are identified, assigned and reviewed.
2
Know about the hyperactive hive mind
The Hyperactive Hive Mind
The hyperactive hive mind is a workflow centered around ongoing conversation fueled by unstructured and unscheduled messages delivered through digital communication tools like email and instant messenger services.
4
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