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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
The title is a little misleading...
The book is about how to have a happier staff and more productive organization - by not using email.
Email is an inefficient time suck that hurts your bottom line and productivity and this book proves it with data.
Instead of email, the author suggests workflow boards like Trello (or the surgery / patient boards you see at hospital) for project management and communicating along with meetings / phone calls.
Examples of companies doing this and how it has benefited them are included.
It’s not a easy change but it does make a world of difference when you stop using email to pass tasks, communicate, or assign / process workflow
The book is about how to have a happier staff and more productive organization - by not using email.
Email is an inefficient time suck that hurts your bottom line and productivity and this book proves it with data.
Instead of email, the author suggests workflow boards like Trello (or the surgery / patient boards you see at hospital) for project management and communicating along with meetings / phone calls.
Examples of companies doing this and how it has benefited them are included.
It’s not a easy change but it does make a world of difference when you stop using email to pass tasks, communicate, or assign / process workflow
informative
medium-paced
Really interesting take on the modern working world and ways we can better approach knowledge work.
Cal Newport, in his endless pursuit of eudomania, has opened an all out assault on email. This book works towards a world where knowledge workers can live in their flow state. It uses email as the natural antagonist to the ideal knowledge worker environment. I can affirm he gets to his conclusion in the end. Newport does so using well laid out arguments, supporting data, and prescriptive solutions.
If you have already read Cal Newport’s books, then you are thinking this one will be more of the same. It is of course more on productivity but it's his pinpoint focus on email and its disruption to knowledge work that sets it 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. He then up offers solutions to this state. Some of his solutions are idealistic. While others demonstrate the idiosyncratic nature of workplace interactions.
Newport gives instant messaging solutions, like Slack, a dressing down as well. Messaging solutions, email, and similar tools all contribute to what Newport calls the “hive mind” work style. The very source of most of our discontent with modern work. He uses one anecdotal story after another to detail the misery of modern work. He also discusses the arbitrariness of how we work currently. Then he shows us multiple solutions for escaping the cycle.
I found myself repeatedly wanting to pause my reading and enact one idea after another to my working style. 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 an actual world without email looks like. A world in which the right amount time is 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 book up and start reevaluating your relationship to email and messaging apps. Then go and redesign your own workflow.
If you have already read Cal Newport’s books, then you are thinking this one will be more of the same. It is of course more on productivity but it's his pinpoint focus on email and its disruption to knowledge work that sets it 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. He then up offers solutions to this state. Some of his solutions are idealistic. While others demonstrate the idiosyncratic nature of workplace interactions.
Newport gives instant messaging solutions, like Slack, a dressing down as well. Messaging solutions, email, and similar tools all contribute to what Newport calls the “hive mind” work style. The very source of most of our discontent with modern work. He uses one anecdotal story after another to detail the misery of modern work. He also discusses the arbitrariness of how we work currently. Then he shows us multiple solutions for escaping the cycle.
I found myself repeatedly wanting to pause my reading and enact one idea after another to my working style. 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 an actual world without email looks like. A world in which the right amount time is 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 book up and start reevaluating your relationship to email and messaging apps. Then go and redesign your own workflow.
Liked how it encouraged deep work, challenged the feeling of getting things done when all you did was ad hoc work. Discouraged asynchronous work. Has lead to more phone calls and in person chats where emails cannot be as efficient.
Also accepting email has a place and how to keep it wrangled while allowing me to do the work /goals I want to truly achieve.
Also accepting email has a place and how to keep it wrangled while allowing me to do the work /goals I want to truly achieve.
When Newport finished his manuscript for this book, he wouldn't have known that the 12 months prior to the book's release would have shifted knowledge workers ever deeper into the hyperactive hive mind spiral which he describes in part 1 of the book. That has been true for me and the sneaking suspicion that email begets more email and more busyness than actual productivity validated. My 5-star signifies that this was the right book for me at this moment in time and that it is a part of an ongoing conversation in retooling what work should look like, enabled by the benefits of tech and less encumbered by their unintended consequences.
What I loved:
A great concept that I’m fully behind. Lots of interesting ideas and philosophies - especially the general questioning of how we work and just accept it when we don’t have to.
Newport is a good writer.
What I didn’t love:
It is too long. There’s a fair bit of repetition. There are a few contradictions and suggestions that don’t seem to support the argument in the way I think’s intended. I don’t know how many people this will be significantly actionable for - it seems like one of those books where the examples Newport gives have helped his own work considerably, and maybe he assumes it will be the same for the reader.
Summation:
An interesting read and good to spark ideas on how to work differently. I wish we didn’t have to use email. I also wish this book was a more engaging argument.
A great concept that I’m fully behind. Lots of interesting ideas and philosophies - especially the general questioning of how we work and just accept it when we don’t have to.
Newport is a good writer.
What I didn’t love:
It is too long. There’s a fair bit of repetition. There are a few contradictions and suggestions that don’t seem to support the argument in the way I think’s intended. I don’t know how many people this will be significantly actionable for - it seems like one of those books where the examples Newport gives have helped his own work considerably, and maybe he assumes it will be the same for the reader.
Summation:
An interesting read and good to spark ideas on how to work differently. I wish we didn’t have to use email. I also wish this book was a more engaging argument.
We all agree that too much email is a problem. This book does a nice job articulating the problem, and highlighting stories of small organizations that operate differently. Where the gap was, for me, was that there wasn't a compelling recommendation about what people should do when they're part of a large organization with bad email / chat expectations and they aren't the CEO.
The book has 4 chapters at the end with recommendations, but the recommendation is buried in the middle of the chapter and there's no memorable acronym to remember them by.
The result is a book that's correct about a lot of things, but not particularly helpful.
The book has 4 chapters at the end with recommendations, but the recommendation is buried in the middle of the chapter and there's no memorable acronym to remember them by.
The result is a book that's correct about a lot of things, but not particularly helpful.
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
hopeful
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
This book is split fairly evenly into two halves: the first analyzes why and how email adversely affects our ability to work deeply, and the second explores theories that can be applied to overcome reliance on email.
To me, the first half is fascinating and vindicating. Newport does a great job explaining why email came to dominate knowledge work and why it's not really helpful. He gets into the weeds often, but overall it was enjoyable and useful.
The second half became a bit tedious, though. From the high view, he presents some applicable ideas for escaping the trap of the "hyperactive hivemind" (a phrase he coined and uses throughout). These boil down to things like "use kanban boards" or "set protocols". But each chapter delves deeply into the theory and research of each, which made my eyes glaze over. It's thorough, I'll give him that. But I found myself skimming the final half of the book.
Still, I'd recommend it to anyone who spends their work day at a computer and walk away feeling like nothing actually got accomplished. Turns out, we're not alone, and we could do better.
To me, the first half is fascinating and vindicating. Newport does a great job explaining why email came to dominate knowledge work and why it's not really helpful. He gets into the weeds often, but overall it was enjoyable and useful.
The second half became a bit tedious, though. From the high view, he presents some applicable ideas for escaping the trap of the "hyperactive hivemind" (a phrase he coined and uses throughout). These boil down to things like "use kanban boards" or "set protocols". But each chapter delves deeply into the theory and research of each, which made my eyes glaze over. It's thorough, I'll give him that. But I found myself skimming the final half of the book.
Still, I'd recommend it to anyone who spends their work day at a computer and walk away feeling like nothing actually got accomplished. Turns out, we're not alone, and we could do better.
informative
slow-paced