A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload

Email encourages originally started out as a means for users of a multi-user mainframe to be able communicate with each other. Since then, it has grown to become ubiquitous in business. Email has helped make some forms of communication easier. However, it has also created numerous problems. It is easy to write a short email that demands significant effort for response. The availability of email also encourages responses at all hours. The rapid asynchronous communication has become an integral part in the "interactive hive mind" culture. Alas, this culture is an inefficient use of time by knowledge workers.

Email is the titular focus of the book. However, it is a stand in for all forms of general electronic communications, including tools like Slack. They all enable us to communicate with others in an always available fashion. This ends up disrupting our work process. Knowledge workers end up spending a great deal of time dealing with urgent non-important tasks, and little time on their core work.

The author provides a buffet of alternatives, with different ones applicable to specific situations. The goal is to allow people to focus on the tasks that they do best. Technology has enabled people to "acceptably" do almost anything. However, that does not mean it is the best use of their time. Hiring somebody to manage a calendar and schedule meeting can save a large amount of time. Many other tasks, such as booking travel or creating powerpoints may be more effectively outsourced to specialists. Setting limits on accessibility can also help. Experts may have only specific "office hours" when they are available to answer questions. Setting expectations of responsiveness in advance helps to eliminate the expectation of quick response and allow people to focus. Software development concepts such as Agile development with Scrum and Kanban or "Extreme Programming" can also be applied more generally. Working "harder" and "shorter" is often much more productive than working "longer."