A World Without Email
Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload
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4.1 • 47 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
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.
Customer Reviews
Pure Productivity
Cal Newport, in his endless pursuit of eudaimonia, has opened an all out assault on email. This book works towards a world where knowledge workers can fully be in there flow state. It uses email as the natural antagonist to the ideal knowledge worker environment. I believe he successfully gets to his conclusion. Newport does so using carefully laid out arguments, supporting data, and prescriptive solutions.
If you have already read any of Cal Newport’s books you are probably thinking this one will be more of the same. It is of course more on productivity. It’s the pinpoint focus on email and it’s disruption to knowledge work that sets this one apart. Newport begins by recasting how we got to an email centric workplace. He then discusses and analyses how the perception of productivity became skewed because of email. Lastly, he offers solutions that are in some cases idealistic, while others call out the idiosyncratic nature of workplace interactions.
Newport gives instant messaging solutions, like slack, along for a dressing down as well. Messaging solutions, email, and similar tools all contribute to what Newport calls “hive mind” work style. The very source of most of our discontent with modern work. One anecdotal story after another details the misery of modern work, the arbitrariness of how we work, and solutions for escaping the cycle.
I found myself repeatedly wanting to pause my reading to enact one idea after another to my working style to level up my bandwidth. That is what makes Newport so great. Even his prescriptive solutions leave room for individual personalization. It probably owes to how long he sits with his work and refines it. In the end that is what a world without email looks like. A world in which the right amount time is made available for knowledge workers to think, create, and flow. While also leaving enough time for people to recover and pursue outside interests.
I would of course recommend any Cal Newport book. His style is succinct, easy to engage with, and thought provoking. “Deep Work” sparked a re-evaluation with my relationship to work. “A World Without Email” is reinforcing my idea of agency and how I meter the inputs coming my way. I have gone ahead and added “Slow Productivity” and “Digital Minimalism” to my reading list. Pick this one up and start reevaluating your relationship to email and messaging apps while also redesigning your own personal workflow.
A must read!
For anyone drowning in their inbox, this book offers a way out of an approach to work that saps your potential.