Once you’ve identified a process that does seem like a good candidate for automation, the following guidelines will help you succeed with the transformation: Partitioning: Split the process into a series of well-defined phases that follow one after the other. For each phase, clearly specify what work must be accomplished and who is responsible. Sig

one of his primary arguments is that instead of reducing labor, computers end up creating more work.

Always keeping emails short is a simple rule, but the effects can be profound. Once you no longer think of email as a general-purpose tool for talking about anything at any time, its stranglehold on your attention will diminish.

Papers measuring the average number of email messages sent and received per day also show a trend toward increasing communication: from fifty emails per day in 2005,5 to sixty-nine in 2006,6 to ninety-two by 2011.7 A recent report by a technology research firm called the Radicati Group projected that in 2019, the year when I started writing this ch

A key property of technological determinism is that the innovation in question alters our behavior in ways that were neither intended nor predicted by those first adopting the tool.

For such a system to truly be a backup, and not just a back door that returns you to the hive mind, it must induce enough friction that you won’t use it unless the situation is sufficiently urgent.

Differentiating workflows and work execution is crucial if we’re going to continue to improve knowledge sector productivity. To get the full value of attention capital, we must start taking seriously the way we structure work.

when playing defense against an onslaught of unpredictable obligations, ad hoc, unstructured messaging soon becomes the only reasonable option to prevent yourself from drowning.

Individual Task Board Practice #4: Add a “Waiting to Hear Back” Column