EMAIL: Would the World Be Better Without It?

The Next Big Idea

Next Big Idea Club

Self-improvement, Arts, Books, Society & Culture, Education

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2021

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What’s the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning and the last thing you do before bed? If you’re a modern knowledge worker, your answer is probably “check my email.” Makes sense. Your inbox is a busy place, which is why you peek at it, on average, every six minutes: constant vigilance is the only way to keep up. But all that checking comes at a cost. Communication overload undermines your productivity, erodes your focus, zaps your energy, and makes you miserable. Luckily, Cal Newport, the Georgetown professor and productivity whiz who came up with “deep work” and “digital minimalism,” has a plan for a post-email future, one where you can concentrate on work that really matters. And in this episode, he shares practical strategies that you can start using now to free yourself from the tyranny of the inbox.

Transcript

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0:00.0	So when I say email makes us less productive, I don't mean that the POP 3 or SMTP protocol
0:09.8	is somehow not productive. It's a great way to broadcast information or send files. It's
0:13.4	much better than the fax machine. What's making us less productive is the hyperactive
0:17.6	hive mind workflow that email enabled. It is literally making us dumber. It is making
0:23.5	it very difficult for us to do serious thinking with our brains and it is exhausting us.
0:29.7	I'm Rufus Griskum and this is the next big idea.
0:33.4	Today, can you imagine the world without email? Is it a better one?
0:56.6	There are people on this planet with amazing powers, with the help of their computers,
1:02.2	and ComputeServe, they access an incredible number of powerful services without buying
1:06.6	a lot of expensive software.
1:09.1	Back in 1993, I was one of those people with amazing powers. I just got in my first ComputeServe
1:15.5	email account, one that I shared with my then girlfriend, Belinda. Our first email address,
1:21.6	71672.1070 at ComputeServe.com. To celebrate, I dashed off my very first electronic message
1:31.8	to a friend with the subject line, The Umbarable Lightness of Email.
1:36.2	Well, well, well, I wrote. At long last, I find myself in the much talked about cyberspace.
1:45.2	It reminds me of Nevada, flat and quiet. But if cyberspace in 1993 was like Nevada,
1:51.8	right before Vegas came online, before that flat, quiet landscape started pulsing and glowing
1:57.5	with endless invitations to distraction. Towards the end of that first email, I added,
2:03.4	I see marvelous procrastination potential in this year's Cyberland. I had no idea just how true
2:09.8	that would be. You know that Joan Diddy in line, it's easy to see the beginnings of things
2:14.0	and harder to see the ends. That's what email was like for me. Before it came into my life,
2:19.2	I'd been a prolific writer of letters, exchanging hundreds of pages with friends. It was a beautiful
	...

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