How to Overcome Distractions In An Era of Social Media | Cal Newport | Ep. 503

Cal Newport researches cutting-edge technology and writes about the impact of these innovations on society. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Deep Work, So Good They Can’t Ignore You, Digital Minimalism, and his latest, A World without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload.

Full show notes here: https://www.jordanharbinger.com/503

What We Discuss with Cal:

🐝 What is the hyperactive hive mind, and how did the collaborative nature of email communication give rise to it?
🐝 Why checking our email an average of every six minutes is, as Cal puts it, “a terrible way to extract value from human neurons.”
🐝 How so-called multitasking takes its toll not only on our individual capacity to focus, but on the prosperity of society as a whole.
🐝 Why debuzzing the hyperactive hive mind can’t be done from the inbox, but by replacing the rules for how we collaborate.
🐝 How we can set the rules, guidelines, and systems by which we agree to communicate without succumbing to the collective pull of the hyperactive hive mind.
🐝 And much more…

Modern knowledge workers communicate constantly. Our days are defined by a relentless barrage of incoming messages and back-and-forth digital conversations — a state of constant, anxious chatter in which nobody can disconnect, and so nobody has the cognitive bandwidth to perform substantive work. There was a time when tools like email felt cutting edge, but a thorough review of current evidence reveals that the “hyperactive hive mind” workflow they helped create has become a productivity disaster, reducing profitability and perhaps even slowing overall economic growth. Equally worrisome, it makes us miserable. Humans are simply not wired for constant digital communication.

We have become so used to an inbox-driven workday that it’s hard to imagine alternatives, but they do exist. Drawing on years of investigative reporting, our guest for this episode — author and computer science professor Cal Newport — makes the case that our current approach to work is broken, then lays out a series of principles and concrete instructions for fixing it. In A World without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload, he argues for a workplace in which clear processes — not haphazard messaging — define how tasks are identified, assigned, and reviewed. Listen, learn, and enjoy!

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