- Published on
A World Without Email
- Authors
- Name
- Josh Haines
- @joshhaines
Introduction
This is the third book that I’ve read by Cal Newport. The previous two were Deep Work and So Good They Can’t Ignore You. Just as with those books, Cal does a great job of taking obvious and non-obvious areas of work and expanding on them in a way that can help you be better at whatever you do.
Hyperactive Hive Mind
The first part of this book is about a concept the authors names The Hyperactive Hive Mind. This concept is all about how modern companies run with a system that includes constant, unstructured, and unscheduled communications. He talks a bout how it disrupts productivity, attention, and is in many ways the antithesis of productive deep work.
Email is certainly part of this issue, but it also includes things like Teams, Slack, or whatever other methods are common to your organization. Most teams accept this model and feel like it is simply part of their working life. Teams in this mode may feel very collaborative and “connected”, but it tends to decrease efficiency and increase the amount of stress and burn-out team members experience.
Asynchronous Communication
In our small part of the business and the people on my teams, I prefer to drive and push us to use asynchronous communications as the primary mode of communication. We aren’t 100% there, but easily 60% or more of our communication falls in that bucket. When new people join our teams or other people need to connect with us on a project we’re always quick to explain in detail how our communication expectations work. `
The message sender has the power when it comes to sending, but the receiver has the power on actions. Said another way, anyone can send a message to anyone else whenever it is convenient for the sender. Everyone is expected to manage their ring tones, silence times, sleep modes, etc. If I’m sitting in bed at 11PM and I think of something for tomorrow, I’m going to send it because it’s convenient for me.
The corollary that we also make clear is me sending that message holds no expectation that the receiver will get it, or react to it until they are ready. Some people on the team NEVER look at their phones or emails outside of work hours. I know 100% they will get my message around 8AM the next morning. Others work strange hours and I might get a response at 3AM. My phone is on silent at that time and it won’t bother me.
Busyness Vs. Productivity
Another topic that hit home for me while reading this is a pattern I’ve seen across every company I’ve worked for. There is a consistent pattern across a huge part of the organization that equates busyness with productivity. People end up finding patterns of endless meetings and full calendars, full inboxes with hundreds of unread messages, and start-to-end of shift discussions. These people often have meetings, then make PowerPoint decks about the meetings, then schedule meetings to review the PowerPoint decks.
The author’s concept of the Hyperactive Hive Mind helps to shed some light on this situation and provide a few examples of steps to climb out of it. I find it a constant challenge to keep myself out of this pattern and encourage those on teams around me to make sure they aren’t stuck in that trap either.
Wrap-Up
True productivity comes from systems that protect cognitive ability, deep work, deep focus, and getting real things done. It feels like Cal Newport is headed in the right direction on this front and I’d highly recommend this book (and others from him) on these topics. I’m going to make sure to mention this concept and book in the future when I’m giving my normal comms discussion for new grads, citizen developers, or when new teammates join.