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

by Cal Newport

Amanda’s general strategy of offering accountability to gain autonomy, therefore, is a powerful approach to escaping chronic overload, but it’s also risky. If you’re entrenched in a large organization where chronic overload reigns, and you’ve developed an expertise that obviously makes you valuable, then this strategy may be one of your best moves to gain the breathing room needed to remake your workflow into something more effective. You don’t necessarily have to match Amanda’s boldness when applying this strategy. Sometimes even just volunteering for a large initiative provides you enough cover to ignore messages and turn down meeting invites without annoying people, as you now have an unassailable excuse: “I would, but am swamped trying to handle [big thing].”