Email reduces productivity

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.

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 on...

The specialization principle says that doing fewer things with higher quality and more accountability can significantly improve productivity. Basically, applying essentialism to knowledge work.

Less intense ways to further specialize are:

• Outsourcing what you don...

The rate of spread of email since the 90s has been outstanding, almost to such a point that the hyperactive hive mind workflow has chosen us.

3 main drivers for this

• “The hidden costs of asynchrony”: synchrony might be “expensive” to set up, but constant asynchrony is mu...

By spending more time setting up rules or protocols for work in advance, we can spend less effort coordinating the work at the moment.

An eg: The standard protocol meeting scheduling is "energy-minimizing email ping pong," which has a low energy cost at the moment but large...

Incorporating efficient production processes into knowledge work can make an incredible difference in increasing performance and minimizes ambiguity as to what to work on at any given time. Task boards like Asana and Trello are some of the key tools when it comes to setting up processes....

For those individuals who score high in neuroticism (a personality trait that is correlated with high levels of anxiety and negative emotions), the mere thought of batching email replies or using a more mindful approach t...