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Cal Newport on an industrial revolution for office work

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Re: Cal Newport on an industrial revolution for office work

#31

Post by onetimename »

rdiddly wrote: post #19

Why do people hate email so much? (Because they haven't mastered it yet, Grasshopper, but anyway...) The thing is, it's communication. Are we shocked that a big chunk of our work burden is the burden of communication? "He spent 1/3 of his time at work answering emails!" Outrageous! vs. "He spent 1/3 of his time at work communicating with the other workers." Yeah sounds about right, if not a little low. The other thin…

I’m creating an account just to reply to this, and for some context: I’m a big Cal Newport fan.

He isn’t arguing against the use of email, but the non intentional default to emailing instead of work. Yes, your ideal scenario- communication between employees will get work done. But in Cal’s scenarios, that one person is having multiple conversations like that through email, and is waiting for the other person to reply. And instead of producing deliverables, they are having these slow conversations.

You mention just get to the email later, but rarely does the application or notification go away after the info is gathered. So your plan of checking email 1-3 times a day is right inline with Cal’s thinking.

Some of his solutions he hand waives away complexities with “we’ll rock and roll” but the idea is email won’t be a springboard for work. It sends pdf’s and reports and minutes great, but planning a project is better done elsewhere.

Re: Cal Newport on an industrial revolution for office work

#32

Post by fighterpilot »

spoonjim wrote: post #13
peterhartree wrote: post #7

> Fixing the hive-mind is going to be a billion dollar industry Cal Newport was one of the inspirations for https://inboxwhenready.org . At this point, people have paid me over $100K to make it harder for them to read their email. I've made some effort to persuade the Gmail and Superhuman teams to take this issue seriously, but to no avail, yet. If anyone here is building an email client or popular Gmail extension, I…

You know 17 years ago I used to work at a company that only delivered email at 5 minutes before the hour (9:55, 10:55, etc) and then didn’t deliver email at all between 9pm and sometime in the morning like 4am or 5am. It was amazing. Email from customers were delivered immediately as were internal emails if you marked it high importance (with the “!”).

I'd like a way to get bulk new notifications pushed to me as a small popup in the bottom right of my screen once every 1-2 hours, if there's new emails during that window. That eliminates the need to check the time to see if it's 9:56am yet and I need to check my email.

Re: Cal Newport on an industrial revolution for office work

#33

Post by lowercase1 »

ahussain wrote: post #8

I think asynchronous communication ( https://blog.doist.com/asynchronous-communication/ ) moves in the right direction on this. 99% of things are not urgent, and people should not be expected to be available instantaneously. But implementing that requires discipline on the part of the person sending the message.

This seems good but falls apart with.long approval chains (which are maybe the core issue).

If I need library PR approved so I can make a service 1 PR so I can make a production release request so that I can deploy a one line change then it's hard to get things done with 4 hour ping time.

Re: Cal Newport on an industrial revolution for office work

#34

Post by Jtsummers »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #26
Jtsummers wrote: post #9

> Cal Newport: But this had a huge impact on the ability of those frontline workers to produce the work that actually was measured, the work that actually brings profit into the organization, because now they had to wrangle with word processors and they had to wrangle with email and they had to wrangle, later on, with these intranet forums where they’re trying to enter in their travel reimbursement, and they’re tryin…

> The rest of the team is not as effective at quitting at the end of the day In my experience, the older one gets the more effective one is at setting these limits. Is that also your experience?

In general, yes. Though in this office I’m the youngest (at 38) and I’m the best at it. Being paid hourly may help, if they want more they have to pay me. The rest are salaried.

I was definitely awful about working excessive hours in my 20s, but once paid OT was off the table, I kicked that habit quick. Even when it came back, I would work OT on occasion, but I realized I enjoyed my life more than work.

Re: Cal Newport on an industrial revolution for office work

#36

Post by rdiddly »

onetimename wrote: post #31
rdiddly wrote: post #19

Why do people hate email so much? (Because they haven't mastered it yet, Grasshopper, but anyway...) The thing is, it's communication. Are we shocked that a big chunk of our work burden is the burden of communication? "He spent 1/3 of his time at work answering emails!" Outrageous! vs. "He spent 1/3 of his time at work communicating with the other workers." Yeah sounds about right, if not a little low. The other thin…

I’m creating an account just to reply to this, and for some context: I’m a big Cal Newport fan. He isn’t arguing against the use of email, but the non intentional default to emailing instead of work. Yes, your ideal scenario- communication between employees will get work done. But in Cal’s scenarios, that one person is having multiple conversations like that through email, and is waiting for the other person to reply…

Hmm maybe I agree with him more than I think I do then. And yeah I've enjoyed at least one of his books and "feel like" I've read another just because of how often it gets quoted to me, haha.

Definitely there are at least two ways of screwing up, and they're both about using the wrong tool for the job. One is to use urgent methods for stuff that's not urgent (which bothers people). And the other, which it sounds like you're alluding to, is using a non-urgent method (email) for things that truly are urgent. Or that are, to use a metaphor, "bandwidth-intensive." You can usually get a heck of a lot more communication done faster in person than you can by email. Although much of it will be lost into the ether, too... unless someone's taking notes. Everybody just use the right tool for the job okay? Great, that's settled!

Re: Cal Newport on an industrial revolution for office work

#37

Post by systemvoltage »

rdiddly wrote: post #19

Why do people hate email so much? (Because they haven't mastered it yet, Grasshopper, but anyway...) The thing is, it's communication. Are we shocked that a big chunk of our work burden is the burden of communication? "He spent 1/3 of his time at work answering emails!" Outrageous! vs. "He spent 1/3 of his time at work communicating with the other workers." Yeah sounds about right, if not a little low. The other thin…

Anytime anyone wants to change something and they give you one of these reasons, run away! 1) We want to modernize it 2) X is so 1990's 3) It is old fashioned.

That means that person is grounded in fashion/trends/what-others-think and not objectivity.

Email didn't come with a date stamped on it - "Hey this technology must be used in 1990-2010 era". For the love of the god people, think from the bottom up. Stop following trends like headless zombies.

Just the other day someone on HN was proposing a better UX/UI for cars without explaining in detail 1) what are the downsides of current steering wheel and 2 or 3 pedals 2) What are the upsides of their idea. Without significant justification for 1) and 2), you ain't changing anything. Stop ruining the world, please.

Re: Cal Newport on an industrial revolution for office work

#38

Post by neatze »

> How about just not needing an email address?

Simply don't understand this, I am not person with great writing skills, but I prefer email most of the time, because to me it is more concise communication medium without time pressure, when it is up to me, usually my work pattern is like this ( emails -> chart -> may be meeting ) or ( emails -> meeting(s) ).

Re: Cal Newport on an industrial revolution for office work

#39

Post by peterhartree »

fighterpilot wrote: post #32
spoonjim wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know 17 years ago I used to work at a company that only delivered email at 5 minutes before the hour (9:55, 10:55, etc) and then didn’t deliver email at all between 9pm and sometime in the morning like 4am or 5am. It was amazing. Email from customers were delivered immediately as were internal emails if you marked it high importance (with the “!”).

I'd like a way to get bulk new notifications pushed to me as a small popup in the bottom right of my screen once every 1-2 hours, if there's new emails during that window. That eliminates the need to check the time to see if it's 9:56am yet and I need to check my email.

If you're using Gmail, you could get a setup like this by installing "Checker Plus for Gmail".

Enable notifications, then in the "Accounts / Labels" tab set the "Polling interval" to 2 hours.

You can also set a "Do not disturb" schedule, during which no notifications will be delivered.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/checker-plus-for-g...

Re: Cal Newport on an industrial revolution for office work

#40

Post by GianFabien »

Email is just a tool. Unlike powertools it doesn't remove limbs or leave gaping wounds, but you still have to use it safely and in a manner that doesn't destroy your productivity and mental health.

Personally, I don't even have email running all day. I just start the mail client about an hour before I am leaving the office, answer the important emails, delete or forward most others. And I get lots of work done!

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