Great book, despite the misleading title

Following the recommendation of a colleague, I have spent part of this sunny Bank Holiday weekend reading Cal Newport’s book, ‘A World Without Email’. I got so much out of reading this book, I thought I should try to summarise it. Then I realised that (i) my summary would probably be rubbish; (ii) there are other really good summaries already out there, and (iii) it’s worth reading the whole book to get the full journey from the philosophical discussion of how we ended up somewhere between Rousseau and Hobbes (I had to look this up) and some really practical, immediate things you can do. 

So, instead, I just thought I’d share some of the things that strongly resonated with me, and which I believe will trigger some changes in my behaviour as a (loosely defined) ‘knowledge worker’.

Part 1: Email can be great, but has had some side teensy effects …

The first part of the book is about defining and explaining the problem and its origins (including a fascinating description of vacuum-powered tube messaging in the CIA HQ in the 1960s). This quote summarises the focus of the book quite succinctly: “The office of 2021 is not the office of 1991 plus some extra capabilities; it’s instead a different office altogether – one in which work unfolds as a never-ending, unstructured flow of messages [..] the hyperactive hive mind. [..] we find ourselves crushed by shallow busyness and struggling to get important work done, all the while feeling increasingly miserable”. A bit dramatic, perhaps, but I interpreted this, in the context of how I work, as: we have dug ourselves a hole by allowing ourselves to be overly guided – to have our workflow managed – by the constant stream of whatever arrives in our email inbox or via instant messaging platforms.

Part 2: Four principles to get of this hole

The second part of the book is structured around four principles:

1. The Attention Capital Principle

Knowledge work can draw much from the world manufacturing (a comparison described back in the 1980s in the book by Intel’s former CEO, Andy Grove). There are broadly two things to consider: workflow (organising and planning things) and execution (doing the value-adding activities). The hyperactive hive mind describes the situation where the workflow is “[..] centred around ongoing conversation fuelled by unstructured and unscheduled messages delivered through digital communication tools like email and instant messenger services”. Result = we try to be good by keeping engaged with and instantly responding to the tsunami of requests, updates and questions but this leaves little time – or, more accurately, energy and attention – for the execution of the real value-adding activities.

2. The Process Principle

So, to address the problem, we need to focus more on processes. More specifically, we need to use smart production processes for knowledge work. If done right, these will increase performance and be much less draining. But what does the author mean by smart production processes? Standard ideas from the world of manufacturing for visualising managing information and workflows, such as the use of Kanban-style task boards. The book gives some great cases studies of how organisations – as well as individuals – can use these via tools such as Trello or Asana (or my own choice, todoist). The discussion then opens up to a wider coverage of various agile approaches, some of which I found resonated really well with how I work; others, less so. One process idea did work for me is the idea of having 'everything to do with one task in one place' - when I need to focus on doing a particular task (e.g. reviews, marking, expenses, proposals, etc), everything needed for that task should be ready-prepared in one folder, rather than having to hunt down the required forms, instructions, or whatever, every single time. Seems so obvious now that I have written that.

3. The Protocol Principle

To make smart production processes really work well, we need rules (protocols) that optimise when and how coordination occurs. The setting up of these protocols can be a drain in the short term, but should result in significantly more productive activities in the longer term. What does this actually mean? The examples used include implementing meeting protocols (being really clear about the way meetings are going to be scheduled, and the purpose of different types of meetings) and office hours protocols (what might seem like adding a little extra friction to the process of getting some input from you, but which will actually ensure you are probably much more able to be helpful as you can be more focused and engaged).

4. The Specialisation Principle

This can be summarised as ‘do less, do better’. To free up time, energy and attention to do the thing you are good at, if possible, outsource the time-consuming things that you don’t do well, for example, diary management. 

There’s an interesting discussion in this section of the book on firm budgeting of time available for different commitments, given in the context of academics’ non-teaching and non-research duties (known as ‘service’ in the US; ‘contribution’ in the UK). Basic message is that many individuals struggle putting limits on the ever-increasing, though often individually small, requests for input that, in total, can lead to execution gridlock. Solution proposed: put a time or quantity budget on different types of activities and use these to explain to others why you might not be able to infinitely expand your capacity to help.

Summary: The title is inaccurate but the book is really worth reading, especially now.

As the author acknowledges at the end of the book, a more accurate title would be “A World Without the Hyperactive Hive Mind Workflow” … but that would have required a footnote explaining what on earth that meant. 

Whatever the title, I’d thoroughly recommend reading this book, or at least listening to this podcast. Though the book was written before the impact of COVID on our working lives really hit, my own experience over the past year strongly resonates with Cal Newport’s observations. They give me the inspiration to try to fight my way out of the hyperactive hive mindset and to try to do things a little bit smarter.