Cal Newport is back on the show to uncover his magnum opus on why we work the way we work today, and why we need to change our relationship with email.
This episode is sponsored by Green Chef. Green Chef is the first USDA-certified organic meal kit company. Ingredients come pre-measured, perfectly portioned, and mostly prepped, so you can spend less time stressing and more time enjoying delicious, home-cooked meals. Whether you’re Keto, Paleo, Vegan, Vegetarian, or just looking to eat healthier, there’s a range of recipes to suit any diet or preference. Go to GreenChef.com/90timecrafting and use code 90timecrafting to get $90 off including free shipping!
This episode is sponsored by TextExpander. With TextExpander, you can unlock your productivity with its many features. With TextExpander you can make everything you write repetitively available everywhere you type: text documents, spreadsheets, web forms, and more. Unlock your productivity with TextExpander. Visit TextExpander.com/podcast for 20% off your first year.
Email simply doesn’t scale – its back and forth nature is what drove Cal Newport down the rabbit hole of finding a better way to work. This includes all methods of communication, be it Slack, WhatsApp, or Facebook DMs and so on. These tools should just be used as shorthand, and not become your work. In his latest book, A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload, I had to unpick my good friend’s insights.
Join us today as we uncover why we need to change our relationship with email. In this brave new world, we touch on how email came about accidentally, finding solutions as a team, context switching, and the fascinating research path that led Cal to writing the book.
Talking Points
- The main elements of email that we need to move away from (1:46)
- Why email has taken over our work (6:14)
- On Merlin Mann and Inbox Zero (11:05)
- The Attention Capital Principle (15:31)
- Changing our view on email in all parts of the business, from managerial to admin and customer support (19:28)
- How you can stop relying on email today (39:45)
“Don’t explain to people what you’re doing, just do it.”
– Cal Newport
Helpful Links
- ‘A World Without Email’ by Cal Newport
- Episode 73 with Cal Newport
- Episode 229: Exploring Digital Minimalism with Cal Newport
- ‘Digital Minimalism’ by Cal Newport
- ‘Deep Work’ by Cal Newport
- The New Yorker articles by Cal Newport
- The New Yorker: The Rise and Fall of Getting Things Done by Cal Newport
- Episode 203: The Evolution of Getting Things Done with David Allen
- Woven
- Deep Questions Podcast
- CalNewport.com
Enjoy the show? Want to keep up with the podcast? You can subscribe to the podcast feed by clicking the “Share” button in the player above – and you can share it further using the same button as well. You can take things even one step further by rating and reviewing the show wherever you listen to podcasts. (FYI: I use Overcast on iOS.)
Do you want ideas, insights, and information on how to craft your time in just one weekly email?
Then you want ATTN: sent to you.
ATTN: is a weekly digest from Productivityist that delivers a week's worth of content in a nice little package directly to your inbox. Just enter your email to subscribe.
