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

by Cal Newport

Perhaps Marshall’s most striking habit was his insistence on leaving the office each day at 5:30 p.m. In an age before cell phones and email, Marshall didn’t put in a second shift late into the night once he got home. Having experienced burnout earlier in his career, he felt it was important to relax in the evening. “A man who worked himself to tatters on minor details had no ability to handle the more vital issues of war,” he once said. Marshall focused his energy as a manager on making key decisions that would impact the outcome of the war. This was a task for which he was uniquely suited. He then trusted his team to execute these decisions without involving him in the details. As Eisenhower recalls Marshall telling him: “[The War Department] is filled with able men who analyze the problems well but feel compelled always to bring them to me for final solution. I must have assistants who will solve their own problems and tell me later what they have done.”