A World Without Email
by Cal Newport · first published 2021
50% recommend50% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Extends the ideas from Deep Work to how whole organizations collaborate, arguing that easy back-and-forth messaging creates over-communication and poor processes. Recommended for managers and knowledge workers.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
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I'm surprised Cal Newport's recent book, A World Without Email wasn't mentioned! https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0525536558/ He takes ideas from Deep Work and builds on them by scaling up the ideas to how an organization should work, coordinate, and collaborate.…
on “Why interruptions are frustrating to developers” ↗Highly recommend World Without Email by Cal Newport on this exact topic: https://www.calnewport.com/books/a-world-without-email/
on “Can Slack-mania be cured with systemized discipline?” ↗…by Will Larson Inspired / Empowered by Marty Cagan Build What Matters by Ben Foster High Output Management by Andy Grove The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker Much by Cal Newport (Deep Work / A World Without Email / etc)
on “Work Stress: How the 42% Rule Could Help You Recover from Burnout (2020)” ↗Cal Newport's work may help. Check out "A World without Email". https://www.calnewport.com/books/a-world-without-email/
on “Ask HN: I have diagnosed ADHD and cannot work with Slack anymore. Advice?” ↗…unstructured back-and-forth. If you're interested in learning about how decreasing barriers to communication in workplaces have resulted in over-communication and poor processes, check out the book A World without Email by Cal Newport. I highly recommend it. Chat engages the small percent of active participants, but neglects people who are too busy (e.g., doing work) to follow along with the streams. This is a problem…
on “Slack is the opposite of organizational memory (2018)” ↗Very interesting. I will take some time tonight to run the demo. I am a big believer in not switching tasks if it can be avoided. I loved Cal Newport's book "A World Without Email" which discusses context switching in the 'information worker' space as something that brings productivity to a halt. I believe he is right.
on “Task-Switching Experiment (2015)” ↗…think it could be a stand-in for GitHub issues instead, and the desire to process it while not observing the screen makes sense. (But I agree with your overall distaste for managing work that way. “A World Without Email” by Newport speaks directly to to that)
on “Launch HN: April (YC S25) – Voice AI to manage your email and calendar” ↗If you're into Cal Newport, he's got a new book coming out that seems related: https://bookshop.org/books/a-world-without-email-reimagining...
on “If it will matter after today, don't talk about it in a chat room” ↗…having a discussion with Antonio Garcia-Martinez (who personally I am not interested in hearing from). But the title reminded me of a part of Ezra Klein interviewing Cal Newport about his new book, "A World Without Email"[2]. In the interview they spend quite a while discussing how it seems like the whole world is presently stuck with Slack, how there's so little visible mainstream competition. Cal has been engaged with…
on “Google I/O 2021” ↗It is exactly what author Cal Newport is recommending in his new book "A World Without Email" (March 2021): replacing the ping-pong of emails and meetings by standardized processes and requests via tools. It's simply incredible to see that Bezos saw this coming 20 years ago!
on “The “API Mandate” memo at Amazon” ↗> Some have been trying to get rid of email for years. Writers like Cal Newport, whose book “A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload” was published in March, has long argued that the “tyranny of the inbox” causes us to lose our ability to concentrate. Switching rapidly between email,…
on “Gen Z Wants to Free the World from Email” ↗Slack destroying American companies is one of the core points of discussion in Ezra Klein's interview with Cal Newport, nominally about his new book "A World Without Email"[1][2]. Great conversation. We feel weirdly run aground at this minima, to me. I think there's still an unresolved but asked question about how we got stuck here. I forget who observed, but worth noting…
on “Is Slack Destroying American Companies?” ↗World Without Email by Cal Newport talks a bit about the challenges here. Specifically, Peter Drucker advocated for autonomy in knowledge work. However, this often leads to a lot of creep around meetings, Slack pings, and…
on “Switching to a four-day workweek (2021)” ↗Cal Newport talked about this as an example of technological determinism in his book A World Without Email!
on “Great Stirrup Controversy” ↗I am curious to learn and incorporate strategies people are following in a remote/hybrid first world for collaborative knowledge work. Was inspired to write down my thoughts about Cal Newport's book A World Without Email, after trying to incorporate principles from it daily at work where dual distractions of email and slack reign supreme. What has worked for you that you think other people/teams should try?
on “A (Post-Pandemic) World Without Email” ↗