A World Without Email

I received this book TODAY and have been tearing through it. I can always rely on Cal to produce high-quality argument-type books, which identify serious, modern-day problems (usually related to human cognition, concentration and productivity) and then propose solutions. His prior book, Digital Minimalism, was my favorite book of 2019. The clarity in Cal's thinking is second to none. He is garnering a rabid fan base because of his demonstrable success as he practices what he preaches. I just discovered his podcast (Deep Questions), and absolutely love that too. He speaks like he writes: with precision and wisdom; Every word is concise and useful. And of course, his blog is central to his hive of followers, which I have not consumed that much of to be honest. But I read is prior works of Digital Minimalism, Deep Work, and So Good they Can't Ignore You. They were all extremely satisfying reads. You'll love his work if you like personal development, self-actualization, productivity, and living an intentional, well-balanced life. I'm a sucker for research books on the effects of modern-day consumer tech. And Cal owns this space. He puts his professorial research skills to use as a purveyor of desperately needed insights in a world dominated by distraction. We check our email inboxes every six minutes. Email has "transformed our workflow" under our noses. It's a "radical shift" in work culture, which has amounted to a drag on productivity. It's a "constant state of unease in a low-grade background of humdrum anxiety." Those are just a couple of gem, hard-hitting quotes you'll find in this book. Consistent with his other books, Cal keeps the table of contents simple and efficient. It has two parts: 1) The Case Against Email and 2) Principles in a World without Email. I'm a practicing lawyer and I very much appreciate Cal's thesis type of writing. His prose has always been crisp, punchy, and persuasive. He comes across in all mediums as honest, smart, and prescient. I will check back in when I finish the book, or will post my final review on Goodreads. Cal, thank you SO much. I've been telling my friends that I've been waiting for your follow-up to Digital Minimalism. I learned of this book through your podcast feature on Todd Henry's Accidental Creative.

I have bought this book on impulse, seeing the eponymous phrase “World without email” which seems to suggest that email is a menace worthy of nothing short of eradication. Not feeling particularly oppressed myself, I was wondering what exactly is the problem Cal Newport attributes to emails and what the “reimagining” is about. While the book turned out to be highly enjoyable, full of good insights and not that much anti-technology, I am not sold on the author’s belief that electronic communication is stifling the effectiveness of work. Our habits are. It is true that you can spend the whole day in your inbox. You can feel productive - so many messages sent! So many people can see how responsive you are! - without actually delivering much in the whole day. You can offload work to other people just by clicking “reply”. You can FYI everyone in the team (and beyond) in a pretense that their silence means agreement. All of that is easy with email, and all of that is oftentimes unnecessary. We are inundated with excessive messages. Cal - in the first part of the book - traces the reasons to the fundamental property of email being vastly quicker and cheaper than paper letters or phone calls. Couple that with our innate tendency to respond to social cues, the reasoning goes, and no wonder the inbox became the place we visit every couple minutes. The author claims this reinforcing relation between the electronic communication and human psychology to be so strong that he uses the argument of “technological determinism”. Back in the nineties, the offices switching from paper to email expected reductions of time spent on communication, but it turned out the volume of messaging increased dramatically, kept growing ever since and became the new normal in the office work. But, I dare to say, we are not losing precious time and attention on corporate spam because email - as a technology - destined us to do so. I believe the whole situation is just convenient to many employees, who would not have that much to do if emails stopped flowing in. Moreover, many organisations are toxic, with people fearing of being judged as slackers without email trail justifying their efforts. Last, but not least - engaging in email threads is easier than actual knowledge work. I believe that rather than the effortlessness of the technology, it is the prevalent office conformism and minimisation of mental effort that lead to excessive time spent on emails. As Cal notices, “the underlying value of the constant electronic communication that defines modern work is never questioned”. This value is low - but it’s part of the common landscape, and it is rather a minority of people who tend to question how their companies work. On the other hand, there are some people who do value uninterrupted time - mainly in the knowledge-based jobs (where quality suffers greatly from interruptions); the second part of the publication is devoted to existing communication/collaboration techniques used in IT, engineering and scientific organisations. While I have some doubts about the reasoning shown in the “why email hurts us” part of the book, it was more enjoyable to read than the “solutions” part, which is perfectly in order but felt just a bit dull. Moreover, I don’t feel there is anything radical or visionary to warrant the “reimagination” of work promised in the title. Setting up processes for repeatable work, using task boards, reducing people synchronisation by giving them autonomy - none of that is new or cutting-edge. It’s common sense applied to motivated people. It is a good book, it highlights an important problem, it is well written - but I am not sure if it can spark a revolution. Still, food for thought. Recommended.

This is, as usual, a Cal Newport classic - extremely well researched, clearly thought out and organised, and presented with clear actionable steps toward better structuring of knowledge work. The book gives a new and clear perspective on why we use email the way we do, and how to move toward a much more efficient, less fragmented, more satisfying, less overwhelming style of work.

I’ve already begun implanting some of the concepts written by Cal. Some I had come across by other authors, but none have so as thoroughly. This isn’t a book on productivity for knowledge workers, but one that brings sanity to a system that needs to change across most modern businesses.

This book had the potential to be life-changing, but it fell well short. The first half of the book, while overwritten at times and unnecessarily repetitive, painted a great picture of how email has made work less creative and more overwhelming. The second half of the book was overly academic (and I am an academic) and failed to provide clear, succinct strategies for the common knowledge worker. I will attempt of adjusting my own use of email and other such features of my work as a professor, but am limited in options taken directly from the book.

As an entrepreneur and a business leader I'm always searching for ways to improve performance in my life and my organization. My inbox has been a pit of despair for the last decade and this year I started a quest to fix it. Most business books regurgitate many of the same concepts we're all familiar with in a fresh format but practically speaking they offer very little substance. "A World without Email" is perhaps one of the most revolutionary, brilliant, and practical books I've ever read. It's also very interesting, as Cal includes numerous case studies and lessons from business history. I would love to meet Cal someday and thank him for his work. I just ordered 10 more copies for my leadership team. My only complaint is that Cal did not publish this book 5 years ago. Maybe we weren't ready. I highly recommend it.

The original thinking that went to Deep Thought is not present. Still some interesting chapters like the Hive Mind which describes the always busy nature being nature of work. Rest is simple practical advice which you would already know most of not all of it.

I am a fan of the Cal Newport’s work and read all of his books stating from “Be So Good They Can’t Ignore You” Many people know him from the book “Deep Work” and in his books that came after it (“Digital Minimalism” and “A World Without Email”) he dives deeper (no pun intended) into some of the important aspects that will allow you to do deep work. So if you liked ideas from “Deep Work”, I think you will like this book as well. I liked the way the author introduces the problems and later provides suggestions, actions, and mindsets to adopt to tackle the issue of “hyperactive mind hive” (seek for explanation in the book :)). I will definitely use the lessons from the book and will see how it will change my productivity (lessons from “Digital Minimalism” made a great impact on my productivity and focus and I expect the same here)

Cal Newport'u Pürdikkat ve Dijital Minimalizm kitaplarından tanıyorum. Henüz Türkçeye çevrilip basılmadı ama konusu oldukça ilgi çekici görünüyor.

Anyone looking for a step-by-step SOLUTION to their work situation underestimates the problem and how varied our responsibilities and work outputs and outcomes are. Newport states that knowledge work is at an efficiency that manual labour was at in 1900. No book for manual labour existed in 1900: Taylor performed an experiment that resulted in improvements (at the cost of worker satisfaction and health). Now we can explore and experiment, finding our way forward in knowledge work efficacy and efficiency, which will be a winding path, as it was in factories all the way up to just-in-time delivery, kaizen, and still there are issues (pandemic chip shortages at auto manufacturers, anyone?).

Muy teórico

This book introduces the big problem of email in our work and personal lives and offers insight into how our approach to working with email can be changed. I have been in jobs where the rate of email and the expectation of quick responses has meant that I am constantly checking emails and reacting to requests. From the start of day, till the end of the week, all the attention and work is around email. The issue with this is you are constantly in reactive mode, spend more time on reading and responding to emails than actual work on tasks. This is what Cal refers to as the Hyperactive Hive Mind. If you have read Deep Work then you will appreciate how important focused time is to produce high quality output and workplaces today with their constant focus on email or IM communications means that people are constantly trying to multitask and have divided attention spans. In the first part of the book, Cal presents the evidence of how Email reduces productivity, makes us miserable and has a mind of it's own. The second part of the book focuses on the principles to allow for solutions for this. It also has case studies of organisations where they have adopted these principles and dramatically reduced the need and use of email. The four principles covered are the Attention Capital Principle, The Process Principle, the Protocol Principle and Specialization Principle. The book has an academic style of writing which you will be used to if you have read Cal's other books and I think it really helps do a great job of painting the picture of how email communication became the problem it is now, how it impacts as and what we can do about it. The solutions aspects of the book aren't revolutionary but combined with the case studies and examples of what can be done, they provide a great framework for a change of attitude towards email and what can be done to actually improve productivity in the workplace. If you are an employee you may not have as much influence in some of the solutions but you may be able to influence those you work with to understand the detrimental effect of email and other solutions including the use of collaborative software. Organisation leaders and owners could really get inspired with what is possible without email to start bringing in changes to how they work. It is not an easy change but one that is desperately needed. I urge you to read this book, also read Deep Work if you haven't and listen to Cal Newport's podcast - Deep Questions which are a great resource to help to adopt this mindset. I will continue to revisit these three resources and play my part in my workplace setting. We can collectively start to make things better. Let's not give in to the norm of the Hyperactive Hive Mind and create changes to support us to work in a more productive and focused manner.

The book says that project management tools like Trello and Asana are helpful for knowledge workers who are interrupted by email, referring to Frederick Taylor, Ford T-Model, Peter Drucker, Thomas Hobbes, consensus problem, agile, Scrum, eXtreme Programming, and so on. Insightful.