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A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload

Cal Newport

4.18 · Rating details · 639 ratings · 85 reviews

The New York Times bestselling author of Digital Minimalism and Deep Work proposes 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, anx ...more

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Published March 2nd 2021

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Mar 14, 2021 Milan rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

In “A World Without Email,” Cal Newport provides a fascinating history of email and how it changed the way organizations worked. He calls the corporate environment as a "hyperactive hive mind" which keeps switching from one task to another briskly. And the most important one seems to be is responding to one's emails. According to him, email makes us miserable. He provides examples of a few small companies that use project boards to manage workflow instead. Knowledge workers need autonomy over ho ...more

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Apr 03, 2021 Kristen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

4.5 stars. A LOT of food for thought here and I loved all of his higher Ed examples. The thing is- I buy his premise. Email is inefficient and leads to communication overload. This has been made so acutely obvious to me during my year working remotely. And Newport gives some great alternatives. But none of his suggestions will take care of what I see as the main problem- “hyperactive hive mind.” So, soon enough, Slack/trello (etc) will go by way of email. However, I do plan to enact some of the ...more

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Feb 10, 2021 Ivan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Classic Cal Newport. Timely and helpful.

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Mar 27, 2021 Jacob Tjornholm rated it it was amazing

I was surprised to enjoy this book so much, because I actually like email a lot. Certainly, I much prefer it to instant messaging or text messages.

The thing is, the title of this book is really misleading. It is not actually about email. Instead, it is about a dysfunctional process (or an absence of process) in the modern workplace, and how email has helped cultivate it and continues to enable it.

Cal Newport uses the term The Hyperactive Hive Mind to describe this. What it means is that instead ...more

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Mar 15, 2021 Taylor Ahlstrom rated it liked it · review of another edition

Cal Newport’s A World Without Email is a detailed, well-researched, and thorough approach to the dilemma of email in the modern knowledge workforce. It is clear from the very beginning that this is something Newport has been both thinking about and studying for many years, and he makes a compelling case.

The concept of limiting distractions and doing “deep work” isn’t a new one for Newport. In fact, he coined the term. Many of his previous books have been on variations of the topic, including hi Cal Newport’s A World Without Email is a detailed, well-researched, and thorough approach to the dilemma of email in the modern knowledge workforce. It is clear from the very beginning that this is something Newport has been both thinking about and studying for many years, and he makes a compelling case.

The concept of limiting distractions and doing “deep work” isn’t a new one for Newport. In fact, he coined the term. Many of his previous books have been on variations of the topic, including his first bestselling book aptly titled, Deep Work, and his first instant New York Times bestseller, Digital Minimalism. In these books, he argues for many of the same principles as in A World Without Email, but they are approached more as personal ways to counteract the busyness of our distracting digital world rather than proposals to overthrow the status quo.
His latest crack at the working world takes everything he knows about human productivity, the bane of ever-present distractions, and the way businesses work to provide a comprehensive solution to the true root of the problem, rather than just treating the symptoms we all suffer from.

The writing is straightforward and conversational as Newport shares many anecdotes from his own personal and professional life, including managing his numerous roles as professor, author, speaker, and researcher. For every idea he proposes, he presents a case study of a company that successfully implemented the practice, how they did it, what roadblocks they ran into, and how it might be adjusted for a different type of business. He readily admits that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to removing email from your company’s workflow. But at the same time, he believes there is no type of company that is incapable of escaping the "hyperactive hive mind" workflow. The case studies he presents are inspiring: real life stories of actual companies who have managed to rid their daily workflow of emails entirely. This isn’t just theoretical.

Beyond advocating for our professional and personal wellbeing, Newport suggests that ditching the hyperactive hive mind is the key to unlocking productivity in the modern workforce never before seen. It was assumed when email and internet infiltrated our daily lives that productivity would skyrocket. However, the gains most businesses have seen since the 1990s are meagre at best. A core tenet of his argument is that we haven’t yet figured out how to actually use the tools we have to make us better—instead they are more often in control of us.

Email, he contends, is a form of technological determinism. When the printing press was invented, it didn’t just make books easier to print; it changed the way we read, spoke, viewed intelligence, and so much more; it changed the world. The internet has without a doubt done the same thing to the way we work and interact. As Newport points out, we don’t have the same offices of the early 90s, but with email. Email changed the entire ecology of the way we do business into the hyperactive hive mind. The hyperactive hive mind isn’t inherently terrible; it has the benefits of being easy and flexible. Work is still getting done, but at the expense of much human misery and lost attention capital. The hyperactive hive mind is one way, but there is a better way. A way that he believes will unlock hundreds of billions of dollars in GDP, if not more.

Overall, Newport’s book is clear, concise, and convincing. He provides no shortage of references to academic studies, popular self-help and business authors, CEOs, entrepreneurs, and his own experience as an expert on the topic. The book is specific and actionable and will give everyone—whether you’re a manager looking to adopt lean knowledge work practices or an employee looking to escape the hyperactive hive mind mentality—something they can do to start.

At the end of the day, however, it is up to businesses around the world to make the choice to change. The system we have now may not be perfect, but it works (sort of). And the pain and cost of switching may prove too much for massive, lumbering corporations that are slow to adopt and adapt. For smaller, nimble, tech-forward companies, the shift is likely much more doable, and is already happening as evidenced in his case studies. Regardless of who you are or where you work, reading Newport’s book will open your eyes to how truly terrible the hyperactive hive mind is for productivity and, most of all, personal wellbeing. A World Without Email may seem like an impossible task, but somehow Newport manages to make it sound like an inevitable reality
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Mar 09, 2021 Pranav Joshi rated it really liked it · review of another edition

First half of the book, pages is a bunch of interesting case studies and a description of the problems with email. The author also quotes from academic papers and research, given his background as a Professor. The basic problem is that we tend to keep checking mail throughout the day, which keeps us distracted from actual deep work.
Interesting quotes:
“Those who retained access to Marshall were provided a clear structure for their interactions, turning briefing the general into an exercise in co First half of the book, pages is a bunch of interesting case studies and a description of the problems with email. The author also quotes from academic papers and research, given his background as a Professor. The basic problem is that we tend to keep checking mail throughout the day, which keeps us distracted from actual deep work.
Interesting quotes:
“Those who retained access to Marshall were provided a clear structure for their interactions, turning briefing the general into an exercise in controlled efficiency. You were instructed to enter his office and sit down without saluting (to save time). At Marshall’s signal, you would begin your brief while he listened with “absolute concentration.” If he discovered a flaw or something missing, he would become angry that you hadn’t noticed and resolved the issue before wasting his time. When you finished, he’d ask for your recommendation, deliberate briefly, then make a decision. He then delegated taking action on the decision back to you.” – a model for manager-employee communication.
Try reducing your actual working hours from the existing ones to maybe 2 hours lesser, and see how you are able to finish your work in the reduced time. It will make you prioritise better and also prevent you from stretching your work just to fill up the timeclock. It will also reduce context switching, and thus overload.
“If people trust you to handle the work they send your way, then they’re generally fine with not hearing back from you right away. On the other hand, if you’re flaky, others will demand faster responses, as they’ll feel they have to stay on you to ensure things get done.”
“He notes that without this structure, you’re left with only one option for increasing productivity: figuring out how to get people to “work faster.” Once you see the whole process, however, a much more powerful option emerges: “We can change the nature of the work performed.” Optimize processes, he urged, not people.”
“An email arrives that informally represents a new responsibility for you to manage; because there’s no formal process in place to assign the work or track its progress, you seek instead the easiest way to get the responsibility off your plate—even if just temporarily—so you send a quick reply asking for an ambiguous clarification. Thus unfolds a game of obligation hot potato, as messages bounce around, each temporarily shifting responsibility from one inbox to another, until a deadline or irate boss finally stops the music, leading to a last-minute scramble to churn out a barely acceptable result.”
“As Johnson explained, the manager in question has a schedule that begins every day with three hours of uninterrupted deep work before he receives “even a single input.” This is time set aside for the manager to think intensely about his projects—making informed decisions on how to go forward, where to focus next, what to improve, and what to ignore. Only after this morning block ends does the manager turn his attention to actively managing the projects he runs.”
“Every employee of Optimize is expected to spend at least the first ninety minutes of every day in a deep work block, free from inputs (some people, like the manager profiled above, spend much more). One of the key uses of this morning block is to think about processes and how to improve them.”

The Protocols part of the book is extremely insightful, and has plug-and-play principles which can be applied.
On the whole, this book will have its biggest impact on you if you know Newport’s style of writing, and have read his previous books, especially Deep Work.
...more

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Mar 22, 2021 Jack Reid rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: work-related, non-fiction, favorites

I've seen explosive growth in narratives on social media's consequences, where we've also adopted new technology without considering the consequences beyond immediate gratification. After internalizing enough of these stories, I quit social media around a year ago (except LinkedIn for business ).

Since quitting, I've found myself more attached to my email than ever. I often refresh it and feel baseline anxiety levels, despite needing email less than ever as a graduate student. What's going on h I've seen explosive growth in narratives on social media's consequences, where we've also adopted new technology without considering the consequences beyond immediate gratification. After internalizing enough of these stories, I quit social media around a year ago (except LinkedIn for business ).

Since quitting, I've found myself more attached to my email than ever. I often refresh it and feel baseline anxiety levels, despite needing email less than ever as a graduate student. What's going on here? A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload is a serious, detailed look at the consequences of the sneaky conqueror of the business world, email.

In the 1980s and 1990s, pundits forecasted immense growth in white-collar productivity. The U.S. witnessed massive productivity gains in blue-collar work since the 1900s, but the latest advances seemed to reduce effort expenditures by white-collar workers. Instead, productivity has advanced at a far lower rate than expected (1-5% points) vs. the 50-100%+ expected. Newport argues that the improper adoption of email, and the creation of the hyperactive hive mind, is the primary cause.

The hyperactive hive mind is linked to our evolutionary tendency to form small bands. Newport demonstrates the importance of responsiveness using evolutionary examples of a mammoth hunt and social standing in a hunter-gatherer society. We aren't wired to ignore short, direct messages. If we ignore them, we feel a base-level of anxiety as we feel we're failing our obligations - even if we know the other party doesn't mind waiting for an answer! This anxiety combined with consistent communication leads to hyperactivity. Then, Cal demonstrates that hyperactivity (AKA multi-tasking) is much worse for our productivity and satisfaction. The alluring falsehood of multi-tasking is easy to understand (when has it really worked for you?) and backed by decades of business literature.

Hence, Newport argues we must leave the hyperactive hive mind behind. And email is its current facilitator. At this point, I've only covered the first third of the book. The next two-thirds include case studies and a detailed review of possible solutions to relying on email for business. I plan to keep Cal's book handy as a reference for the next several weeks. I've already enacted one solution, the personal kanban board, and feel a weight lifted off my shoulder. I still feel overwhelmed by my email. But now, I feel more equipped to try various solutions rather than shrugging and accepting the "modern" way of living.

A book with the title A World Without Email may sound reactionary. Instead, Newport brought revolutionary thinking and convinced me that we must keep innovating our business ways. Right now, we are the blue-collar workers in the 1900s. We can achieve the dream of working less and achieving more, and leaving the office satisfied rather than frustrated by our day. A World Without Email is a more nuanced and practical application of Newport's breakout work Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. It's my favorite so far by Newport. I look forward to his next one. ...more

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Mar 23, 2021 Ron rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: work

This book is written in two parts. The first part discusses the hyperactive hive mind (a workflow centered around ongoing conversation fueled by unstructured and unscheduled messages delivered through digital communication tools like email and instant messenger services) that has been created by email and how unproductive and inefficient it is. The chapters in this part:

-Email reduces productivity
-Email makes us miserable
-Email has a mind of its own
The second part of the book gives alternatives ...more

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Mar 13, 2021 Andrew rated it liked it · review of another edition

The future of work is increasingly cognitive.
-p.xxii

“Trust one person to make that decision, stop cc’ing everone on emails, and get to work!”
-p.229

It is likely that Cal Newport’s “A World Without Email” has something for you.

That also suggests that much of the text might be inapt to your situation.

I found the first ½ quite interesting, as it laid out an intellectual and evolutionary foundation for why the so-called hyperactive hive mind is bad for our productivity, given that we have primitive ...more

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Mar 20, 2021 Sebastian Gebski rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Annoyingly chaotic, imprecise, mixes many different concepts w/o getting down deep enough.

1. It's not a book about e-mail, but something the author calls "hyperactive hive mind", which in short is just a way of managing and coordinating the way - primarily by e-mails circulating in the organization. That's one very specific and hardly representative case for e-mail. But on the other hand, Newport puts communicators (message-based) in the very same bag. Utter chaos.

2. The overall criticism of e-m Annoyingly chaotic, imprecise, mixes many different concepts w/o getting down deep enough.

1. It's not a book about e-mail, but something the author calls "hyperactive hive mind", which in short is just a way of managing and coordinating the way - primarily by e-mails circulating in the organization. That's one very specific and hardly representative case for e-mail. But on the other hand, Newport puts communicators (message-based) in the very same bag. Utter chaos.

2. The overall criticism of e-mail starts in a totally ridiculous way: the author pities that people use this asynchronous communication method in a synchronous way (because they feel the pressing urge to respond immediately). It's not an issue of an e-mail (as a tool), but of org's culture and wrong expectations set. To fairly judge e-mail, one should classify it properly and understand its features: that it's asynchronous, written, persistent, can be fanned-out to many people, can be easily turned into a pub-sub distribution, etc. There are certain limitations, but also certain advantages because of those characteristics, but the author fails to pin them down

3. It gets even funnier when the author admits he had problems with proposing the better alternative for e-mail (when asked by the publisher). In the book his first proposal was ... Trello. That was the moment when I've nearly thrown the book out of the window. But it got even worse since then: the author started compulsively jumping between topics - mixing Theory of Constraints (he didn't name it though), flow-related concepts (Kanban way), Scrum, Extreme Programming, status meetings (!), office hours, and what-not else. There was very little about communication, far more about orchestration. Which is NOT the same. Communication can be one way (spreading the info to interested parties) and two way (e.g. conflict resolution, agreeing on the approach, etc.) - that's something Newport seems not to notice.

4. The book was released very recently, but it completely ignores the pandemic that has (since 2019) changed the world. So one of the highly praised solutions (e-mail alternatives) is just collocation or paying someone a direct visit.

To be honest, I am far from being an e-mail aficionado, I barely use e-mails even in work. But my point is that e-mail is just one of the options in our palette. It's very useful in particular scenarios and completely detrimental in others. So it's essential to understand it in depth and apply the lessons in practice. IMHO this book doesn't help with that.
...more

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Apr 04, 2021 Melanie rated it liked it · review of another edition

I'm giving this book three stars because I like the concept and Cal Newport's continued determination to push back against the "busyness" culture. We are kindred spirits. However, the title is misleading. I understand it's provocative and catchy, but what Newport is really writing about is why the "hyperactive hive mind," as he calls it, is hurting companies and employees. He uses email as the example throughout. And he's not just talking about email, but email-like systems like Slack too, which I'm giving this book three stars because I like the concept and Cal Newport's continued determination to push back against the "busyness" culture. We are kindred spirits. However, the title is misleading. I understand it's provocative and catchy, but what Newport is really writing about is why the "hyperactive hive mind," as he calls it, is hurting companies and employees. He uses email as the example throughout. And he's not just talking about email, but email-like systems like Slack too, which he's against. And he's not wrong: Too many employees and freelancers spend their work day responding to and writing emails, or feeling the need to be on Slack all day, doing the work that those instant communications bring up. It's just reacting, reacting, not actually working or having the time and focus to do the real "deep work" or be innovative in your business.

He outlines the problem of task switching and multitasking, but those are not new arguments. And he's not actually arguing to get rid of email but not to use it to determine the work flow, nor to respond to it all day. His alternative is to set up processes and project management systems, which I already see a number of companies doing, particularly in the pandemic. As a freelancer, I have newer clients that use Microsoft Teams, Monday.com and Basecamp, largely avoiding email. Processes are important. Project management systems are helpful. But it's more about changing the culture from the top down. I found some of his suggestions helpful as a freelancer because I'm my own boss, but I had largely already bought into his concepts of using processes and project management systems and not checking email 24/7.

If you're a middle management employee, you might be frustrated that you just can't quit email. Newport acknowledges this and tries to give some mid-management solutions, but it's really a book for business owners, freelancers and CEOS, not regular employees. The book is also very wonky in parts and drops into a sometimes dry, tedious history of computer systems—Newport is a professor of computer science, and I think his editor should have told him everyday people will find this deep dive boring. The book could have been better organized and much shorter. If you want to try Newport, I highly suggest his book "Deep Work, followed by "Digital Minimalism." This book ranks third after those. ...more

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Mar 07, 2021 Gwen rated it liked it · review of another edition

"Hyperactive hive mind" is how Newport describes the workflow environment typical of many organizations. I encounter it regularly in the work I do challenging organizational leaders to adopt different ways of working together that transcend the reactive, low value activity that passes for "work". I'll bet you're living it as well.

Time management, attention management, priority management are all strategies aimed at helping the individual be "more productive". Newport shows why they fail. He put ...more

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Mar 10, 2021 Eric rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Cal Newport has done it again! After Deep Work changed my life, I suspect this book accomplish a similar goal, although perhaps not in as extreme a fashion. This book follows a similar format as Deep Work: a) Present the evidence, b) Suggest a solution. Newport postulates that the constant barrage of email has resulted in an "interactive hive mind" that is distracting us from the goal of accomplishing deep, fulfilling work. He presents the theoretical and scientific (neuropsychological) reasons ...more

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Apr 01, 2021 Pete rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: self-help, nonfiction

A World Without Email (2021) by Cal Newport is another book from Newport about doing the most valuable work we can at work. Newport is an MIT graduate and associate professor at Georgetown in Computer Science.

In the book Newport describes how many knowledge workers now exist in a storm of meetings and email and are constantly being interrupted by email in particular. He calls this the ‘hyperactive hive mind’ and says that when in this state people don’t have time to really focus on what is impor ...more

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Mar 22, 2021 Barnabas rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, business, self-help

Cal Newport's books are really practical.
There's always some takeaway that I could take and include in my daily practice:
- From So Good, They Can't Ignore You it was the deliberate practice (and the Tally Hour Routine),
- From Deep Work it is the scheduled undistracted work segments I put in my calendar - when I actually switch my phone off,
- From Digital Minimalism the importance of Solitude (which I implemented as going on Solitude Walks - no inputs, no phonecalls, no audiobooks allowed)
From ...more

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Mar 23, 2021 Jared Wong rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Lots to think about. Nothing too heretical, but a good overview capturing the problems we presently have with our default workflow.

(view spoiler) ...more

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Mar 28, 2021 Carolien rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, science, 2021

I’ve appreciated Cal Newport’s work on the intersection between technology and social transformation since I first encountered his 2016 book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. In his latest book, he sets out to pull together everything we know about how we ended up in a culture of constant communication and the effect of rapid task switching on both our productivity and our mental health. I’m old enough to remember my stepfather who was a researcher coming home and telli ...more

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Mar 18, 2021 Morrison Cole rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 2021

I feel the need to justify my 2 stars here since I rarely rate a book so poorly.

First off, it's not a bad book. There are some interesting tidbits about the history of workflows, the writing is engaging, and for what it's worth the Audible narration is excellent. The systematic (read: bigger picture) approaches to thinking taken here are also valuable. If nothing else, this book had me pausing to reflect on my own workflows from time to time, which I always appreciate.

Where it fell down for me w ...more

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Mar 27, 2021 Eric Rath rated it it was ok · review of another edition

As an educator, there wasn’t much past the first couple of chapters I could really use. I allowed myself the opportunity to dismiss that because I know full well that this book is geared to the standard cubicle/Dilbert/Office Space environment. However, it irritates me that Newport is an educator, his grandfather was an educator and he didn’t dive into email in the educational space. Even an aside comment here or there about possible alternative applications of his approach for educators would h ...more

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Mar 16, 2021 Matthew rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I heard about this author (and the book) on one of Michael Gervais’ Finding Mastery podcasts and decided to give it a go.

I am glad I did.

I think the book is outstanding. It describes the current world of email and electronics as part of the “Hyperactive Hive Mind” and that the constant task-switching required in many environments is costly in terms of “cognitive cycles” and ultimately address to stress/anxiety as well as subtracting from overall productivity.

The concept is that in a knowledge ec ...more

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Apr 05, 2021 Henry Suryawirawan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: owned

Another great book from Cal Newport! I was intrigued by the title of the book as I have been questioning myself a lot at work related to the insurmountable amount of emails, unstructured messages and chats that seem to create lots of noises and anxiety in my daily life. I even wondered whether this is just a new norm in the current fast-pace technology landscape, and that I would just need to find a way to adjust to the new norm.

Having read the book, Cal explained in great details on why the hyp ...more

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Mar 30, 2021 Dan Mantena rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: tech, self-development

my rating - overall Score: 3.0/5.0
- quality of writing (5/5)
- quality of the content (5/5)
- impact on my perspective (4/5)
- personal resonance (1/5)
- rereading potential (0/5)

Cal provides a very compelling argument about the drawbacks of relying on email to assign, execute and review knowledge work.

Email is fundamentally flawed due to the way it promotes unstructured ad-hoc work that does not efficiently allocate brain capacity to the most meaningful work. Cal calls this the hyperactive hive mi ...more

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Apr 06, 2021 Clemens Adolphs rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Not a full summary, just a few notes.

The book has two parts: Part 1 talks about how our use of email and instant messaging has turned our workplace experience into a living hell, where tasks are thrown about in an unstructured, unscheduled, ad hoc fashion and work gets accomplished via the hyperactive hive mind. Cal Newport explains both how we got there and why this is bad. For a teaser on some of these ideas, you can check out his article "Email is making us miserable" in the New Yorker.

Part 2 ...more

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Mar 14, 2021 Gonzalo Cordova rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Cal Newport continues developing his deep work ideas, focusing this time on how email impacts our productivity and well-being. The author makes a case against email to orchestrate knowledge work followed by a thoughtful discussion of how to effectively design workflows that support impactful work execution without relying on email.

This book is packed with meaningful content. However, I found it contributed the most by discussing knowledge work as a combination of both work execution and workflow ...more

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Apr 08, 2021 Brent Newhall added it · review of another edition

The subtitle is more accurate than the title. Newport explores the idea that general-purpose digital messaging services -- email, Slack, Facebook Messenger -- are bad at co-ordinating and managing work, and create a constant low-grade anxiety that the worker "should" be checking their messaging service constantly. He doesn't advocate completely banning them; instead he suggests using purpose-built tools to manage and communicate about work (so, task trackers like Trello), with messaging reserved ...more

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Mar 27, 2021 John Cumming rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The book starts with an easy to read analysis of how email has shaped modern working culture and inadvertently created a hyperactive hive mind where constant distraction is the norm and delivering value is becoming increasingly difficult. A reminder that technological determinism is always worth remembering as creators of new technologies. The ideas about how to resolve this started in the territory of agile practices familiar to many in the software world, but perhaps not so much elsewhere. The ...more

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Mar 28, 2021 Jerry Smith rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2021

3.5 but not good enough to round up to 4.

I'm a fan of Newport. I like his writing style, he's a CS Professor so it's clear and to the point. He does go a little overboard on details occasionally but that's expected when someone lives in Academia.

This is a pretty good read, I'd slot it in at #3 of his 4 professional books. All 4 are pretty gapped to me. "Deep Work" is far and away his best work, even has a podcast dedicated to the topic. Distant 2nd but still good is "So Good They Can't Ignore Yo ...more

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Mar 31, 2021 Ariadne rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: for-knowledge, 2021, kindle, non-fiction

The concept of the hyperactive hive mind workflow makes sense. It gave me some awareness of this workflow and I can probably adopt one or two minor strategies to deal with it. I don't think any of the major strategies, like office hours or having shared boards at work would work for me, it would require an upper management radical shift at my workplace.
Also, it has become clear to me the importance of having clear defined workflows. Cal Newport defines that knowledge work is the combination of ...more

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Mar 27, 2021 Josh Wilks rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I love Cal Newport's writing. I love the ideas that he puts time into fleshing out, and I love how he presents these while writing. This is the fifth book of his that I have read and all have followed the same format: breaking up the philosophical from the practical and providing specific case studies along the way.

This book tackled how work is undertaken and how it is determined who works on what, and how. The biggest thing I got out of this book was how much good processes can add to work sati ...more

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Mar 31, 2021 Heath Salzman rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2021, culture, business, philosophy

Newport’s gift is his ability to look at something we take for granted and ask if we have to do it the way we have always done it. This is what I appreciated about “Digital Minimalism” and “Deep Work” and it is what led me to this volume.

“A World Without Email” is mostly relevant to the knowledge work industry, but is still applicable to anyone who uses email. Perhaps the biggest takeaway to consider is to question, in any given situation, if email is the best tool or process for that task? We ...more

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Cal Newport

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Cal Newport is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Georgetown University, and the author most recently of Deep Work, a book which argues that focus is the new I.Q. in the modern workplace, and So Good They Can’t Ignore You, a book which debunks the long-held belief that “follow your passion” is good advice. He has also written three popular books of unconventional advice for students. Hi ...more

Books by Cal Newport

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World

So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love

How to Win at College: Surprising Secrets for Success from the Country's Top Students

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“The relevant research literature also helps clarify this sense of overload. In their original 2004 study on attention fragmentation, Victor M. González and Gloria Mark partitioned the efforts of the employees they observed into distinct working spheres, each representing a different project or objective. They found that on average their subjects worked on ten different spheres per day, spending less than twelve minutes on one before switching to another.36 A follow-up study in 2005 found the observed employees touching on eleven to twelve different working spheres per day on average.37 The large number of different spheres these subjects tackled in a given day, combined with the reality that each sphere demands the accomplishment of many smaller tasks and presumably dozens of emails, provides a harried portrayal of modern knowledge work. “At night, I often wake in a panic about all the things I need to do or didn’t get done,” writes journalist Brigid Schulte in Overwhelmed, her 2014 book on this busyness epidemic. “I worry that I’ll face my death and realize that my life got lost in this frantic flotsam of daily stuff.”38” — 0 likes

“Acuity, ScheduleOnce, Calendly, and, of course, x.ai (to name a few examples among many)” — 0 likes

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A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload

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Preview — A World Without Email by Cal Newport

A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload

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About Cal Newport

Books by Cal Newport

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