Stop. Breathe. We Can’t Keep Working Like This.

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.6 • 11K Ratings

🗓️ 5 March 2021

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We were promised, with the internet, a productivity revolution. We were told that we’d get more done, in less time, with less stress. Instead, we got always-on communication, the dissolution of the boundaries between work and home, the feeling of constantly being behind, lackluster productivity numbers, and, to be fair, reaction GIFs. What went wrong? Cal Newport is a computer scientist at Georgetown and the author of books trying to figure that out. At the center of his work is the idea that the technologies billed as offering us more productive, happier, socially rich lives have left us more exhausted, empty and stressed out than ever. He’s doing something not enough people do: questioning whether this was all worth it. My critique of Newport’s work has always been that it focuses too much on the individual: Telling someone whose workplace communicates exclusively via Slack and email to be a “digital minimalist” is like telling someone who lives in a candy store to diet. But his new book, “A World Without Email,” is all about systems — specifically, the systems that govern how we work. In it, Newport makes a radical argument: We are living through a massive, rolling failure of markets and firms to rethink work for the digital age. But that can change. We can change it. Recommendations: "Technics and Civilization" by Lewis Mumford "Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change" by Neil Postman “A Continuous Shape” (video) "Andrew Henry's Meadow" by Doris Burn You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of "The Ezra Klein Show" at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. “The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Rogé Karma and Jeff Geld; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Mr. Klein. Welcome to the Asher Client Show.
0:24.6	Before we get into it a bit of housekeeping, we are looking for an associate producer that
0:28.3	the job is still open but not much longer. If you have two years of audio experience and
0:33.0	want to work on the show, go check out the link to the job listing in show notes.
0:38.1	But to the show today, I want to begin here with a concept that's going to be important
0:42.0	throughout the episode, the Hyperactive High Find. That's the idea at the Center of
0:46.4	Cal Newport's new book, A World Without Email. And it's the idea, he says, at the center
0:51.4	of how a lot of us are working and living these days. He defines the hyperactive high
0:55.8	find as a workflow centered on ongoing conversation fueled by unstructured and unscheduled messages
1:02.5	delivered through digital communication tools like email and instant messenger. It's
1:07.1	a bit of a mouthful, but if you're someone working in an office, maybe a remote one now,
1:12.0	where there's just a constant stream of digital work like chatter. You kind of always need
1:18.4	to be keeping up with, but also you sense it's distracting you from doing your work and
1:22.5	also from seeing your family and just relaxing pretty often that you're in a hyperactive
1:27.0	high find and a lot of us, not all of us, but a lot of us are in this now. I've been a
1:32.4	fan of Newport's work for years going back to his book Deep Work. Newport has been circling
1:37.1	this idea that all the digital wonder around us has come with a cost. We're losing our
1:42.4	ability to concentrate. These remarkable vistas of information that have been open to us
1:47.6	have also been polluted by endless distraction. We're not benefiting from any of this the way
1:54.0	we thought we would. Instead of getting more done in less time, we feel like we have less
1:58.9	time than ever and are never getting enough done. It's really weird. Something is wrong
2:03.4	here. And one reason I like Newport's work is I think he is right on this. I think
	...

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