A World Without Email

Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload

By: Cal Newport

Narrated by: Kevin R. Free

Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's Summary

New York Times best seller!

From New York Times best-selling 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.

©2021 Cal Newport (P)2021 Penguin Audio

Critic Reviews

“A World Without Email crystallizes what so many of us feel intuitively but haven’t been able to explain: the way we’re working isn’t working. Cal Newport charts a path back to sanity, offering a variety of road-tested practices to help us escape the tyranny of our inboxes and achieve a calmer, more intentional, and more productive working life.” (Drew Houston, cofounder and CEO of Dropbox)

“The future of work demands new tools of collaboration. Cal Newport is on a quest to uncover better ways for knowledge workers to collaborate. Out of this will come the new work space.” (Kevin Kelly, senior maverick for Wired) 

"Ford studied how to improve productivity and organize the factory floor. Now, Newport is doing the same for knowledge work." (Fortune)

Waste of time

A terribly misleading book title. The entire premise of the book is that people get more done when not distracted. Email can be a distraction.

There, you've read the book.

We interrupt this program for....

Once again Professor Newport backs up his statements with studies and solutions! Lowered friction offered by email allows for the depletion of your attention capital and reduces your work quantity and quality. Overwhelmed with a constant stream of unimportant emails or lacking the bandwidth to get the deep work done that your career requires is a common complaint. Stop complaining and try out the methods suggested here and see them start to work for you. I have followed Cal's Blog for years and adjusted my own workflows and they work so that I can. Try out and adjust the many solutions for your particular kind of deep work required in your work environments and see for yourself. It takes some vigilance but the alternative is the crushing continuous feed of unimportant communications. Thanks again Professor!

It’s ok

It’s ok - good premise and he’s done his research but if you’ve bought Newport’s previous books, don’t buy this one.

Great idea, horrible book

Really great ideas, but they should have been edited better into a book half its size. It is just incredibly repetitive and endlessly dragging on and on, reiterating the same few things over and over and over. It has been so boring you get distracted by wishing the book was over.

This was awesome!!

Great ideas and so glad you're tackling this issue Cal. Fantastic book with lots of great tips!

Makes you think about your work flow.

I have started to implement a few of these ideas into my daily workflow. And I have to say it seems to help! Just having a starting point and some guidance helps! it's about to you to follow through.

beautiful sequel to deep work

I was skeptical that I needed to read this book after learning so much in Cal's precious book Deep Work. I was wrong. This book is a phenomenal addition to the canon. It's mainly about productivity hacks and how deliberate work can integrate with technology like Trello or Asana to make you a better knowledge worker.

this book is a must read if you love deep work and are a part of an organization!

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.

Interesting premise for remaking knowledge work

Newport discusses ideas for a new theory of knowledge work. He inspires other to think outside the box and see where we can go in the future.

so. damn. true.

This was saying things that I've been thinking about forever but had rarely articulated in the lovely way that Cal Newport did. This is one of those books that everyone who has an email account should read, regardless of whether you do knowledge work or are the support staff for it.