Modern living is all about convenience. If we can have what we need, when we need it, at our fingertips, that’s a good thing. Right?
The introduction of email (and its siblings, texting, IM, Slack, etc) was supposed to make our work lives more efficient—no more waiting for a call back before you could move ahead. In his latest book, A World Without Email, Cal Newport makes a compelling argument for the benefit of inconvenience.
A primary premise of the book is that the modern way of working (for knowledge workers in an office setting) is what he calls “the hyperactive hive mind.” We must all be connected at all times to be able to be responsive to anything anyone else may need.
And when we think about these needs individually, the problem isn’t apparent. “It would take him two minutes to respond to my email; what’s the big deal?” But as soon as we start to look at the volume of these requests, it’s clear where the problems lie.
First, there’s never Just One Email. For many of us there is a constant barrage all day of email, text, chat, or whatever other technology your organization uses. There’s no barrier to using these forms of communication—it’s free, it’s simple, and best of all it gives you that dopamine hit of clicking “send”. You feel like you’ve accomplished something (but of course you’ve most likely created another task for someone else on the other end).
Second, if we are responding to other’s questions and needs all day, there’s no time to attend to our own work, the work that requires our undivided, undistracted attention. Between emails and meetings, many people can only do this deeper work outside of work hours, when no one will bother them.
I’m still in Part One of the book, so I don’t know yet what Newport is going to suggest to counteract the pull of the hyperactive hive mind. But I’m interested in this idea of giving our communication more friction, rather than eliminating it altogether. Newport writes: “The idea that eliminating friction can cause problems may sound unusual, as we’re used to thinking of more efficiency producing more effectiveness, but among engineers like me, this concept is commonly understood. Too little friction can lead to feedback loops that spiral out of control, as happens when a microphone gets too close to a speaker and the self-amplification recursive explodes into a deafening screech.”
What if we knew we had one hour to work out the details of a plan, and that after that meeting any communication with other members of the team would cost us an escalating payment? $3 for the first email, then $5 for that text…
I bet we would pay close attention during the meeting. We would know that there is no “oh, I’ll just ping her later” or “it doesn’t matter if I come a little late” because we would value the time, and we would know that others did, as well. We would be truly present and come prepared, having read all the notes and developed our strategy.
“Make it a little harder to get the message across” may seem like strange advice from a communication coach. But raising the bar on the quality of our communication helps us all value and make the most of our interactions.
