A World Without Email

Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload

By: Cal Newport

Narrated by: Kevin R. Free

A New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller

From New York Times bestselling author Cal Newport comes 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, anxious chatter in which nobody can disconnect, and so nobody has the cognitive bandwidth to perform substantive work. There was a time when tools like email felt cutting edge, but a thorough review of current evidence reveals that the "hyperactive hive mind" workflow they helped create has become a productivity disaster, reducing profitability and perhaps even slowing overall economic growth. Equally worrisome, it makes us miserable. Humans are simply not wired for constant digital communication.

We have become so used to an inbox-driven workday that it's hard to imagine alternatives. But they do exist. Drawing on years of investigative reporting, author and computer science professor Cal Newport makes the case that our current approach to work is broken, then lays out a series of principles and concrete instructions for fixing it. In A World without Email, he argues for a workplace in which clear processes--not haphazard messaging--define how tasks are identified, assigned and reviewed. Each person works on fewer things (but does them better), and aggressive investment in support reduces the ever-increasing burden of administrative tasks. Above all else, important communication is streamlined, and inboxes and chat channels are no longer central to how work unfolds.

The knowledge sector's evolution beyond the hyperactive hive mind is inevitable. The question is not whether a world without email is coming (it is), but whether you'll be ahead of this trend. If you're a CEO seeking a competitive edge, an entrepreneur convinced your productivity could be higher, or an employee exhausted by your inbox, A World Without Email will convince you that the time has come for bold changes, and will walk you through exactly how to make them happen.

Another one, nothing but net!

Thank you Cal Newport for reinvigorating my insane cleaning and organizing. This is especially helpful now as many of my other teachers are sinking into the bog of eternal stench.

Worth more the than the investment

The concepts in this book are worth far more than the monetary and time investment required to consume them. I suspect the investment it will require to put the concepts into practice will also be small relative to the rewards they will yield. I started listening with the idea that Dr. Newport would provide suggestions for doing away with email altogether; a grand objective that might seem naive to most. I was excited to find that he addresses much, much more.

Important

This book is more important than you might think. Knowledge-worker productivity is not understood well. Cal Newport makes a strong contribution.

I related to this book more than any other book!

I could relate so much to every part of this book. I hope I could use what I've learned and make things better.

Good fresh look at getting out from under task work

This book gives a great fresh look at how to get out from doing something that feels as if it’s actual work – but is very rarely connected to the high-quality high effectiveness work that we originally signed up to do. Definitely worth a read to give yourself some new ideas and new ways of approaching Your job.