A world Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload

Introduction: The Hyperactive Hive Mind
1
. Chris Anderson, Free: The Future of a Radical Price (New York: Hyperion, 2009), 4.
2
. Radicati Group, Inc., Email Statistics Report, 2015–2019, Palo Alto, CA, March 2015.
3
. Jory MacKay, “Communication Overload: Our Research Shows Most Workers Can’t Go 6
Minutes without Checking Email or IM,” RescueTime (blog), July 11, 2018,
https://blog.rescuetime.com/communication-multitasking-switches/
.
4
. Gloria Mark et al., “Email Duration, Batching and Self-Interruption: Patterns of Email
Use on Productivity and Stress,” Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human
Factors in Computing Systems, May 2016, 1717–28. See table 2.
5
. Adobe, “2018 Consumer Email Survey,” August 17, 2018,
www.slideshare.net/adobe/2018-adobe-consumer-email-survey
.
Chapter 1: Email Reduces Productivity
1
. Victor M. González and Gloria Mark, “‘Constant, Constant, Multi-tasking Craziness’:
Managing Multiple Working Spheres,” Proceedings of the 2004 SIGCHI Conference on
Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 2004, 113–20. I call this paper “famous”
because it has been cited more than seven hundred times and is almost universally
mentioned in articles and studies about distraction and attention in the modern
workplace.
2
. González and Mark, “‘Constant, Constant.’” Table 1 of this paper captures an early form of
the data indicating this swap. During my interviews with Mark, she elaborated and
clarified this data, including pointing out some outlying data points. The portrayal of
the data described in my text matches her updated explanation provided in this
personal correspondence.
3
. Judy Wajcman and Emily Rose, “Constant Connectivity: Rethinking Interruptions at
Work,” Organization Studies 32, no. 7 (July 2011): 941–61.
4
. Gloria Mark et al., “Email Duration, Batching and Self-Interruption: Patterns of Email
Use on Productivity and Stress,” Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human
Factors in Computing Systems, May 2016, 1717–28.
5
. Victoria Bellotti et al., “Quality Versus Quantity: E-mail–Centric Task Management and
Its Relation with Overload,” Human-Computer Interaction 20 (2005): 89–138.
6
. Gail Fann Thomas et al., “Reconceptualizing E-mail Overload,” Journal of Business and
Technical Communication 20, no. 3 (July 2006): 252–87.
7
. Stephen R. Barley, Debra E. Meyerson, and Stine Grodal, “E-mail as a Source and Symbol
of Stress,” Organization Science 22, no. 4 (July–August 2011): 887–906.
8
. Radicati Group, Inc., Email Statistics Report, 2015–2019, Palo Alto, CA, March 2015.

---

9
. Jory MacKay, “Communication Overload: Our Research Shows Most Workers Can’t Go 6
Minutes without Checking Email or IM,” RescueTime (blog), July 11, 2018,
https://blog.rescuetime.com/communication-multitasking-switches/
.
10
. Jory MacKay, “The True Cost of Email and IM: You Only Have 1 Hour and 12 Minutes of
Uninterrupted Productive Time a Day,” RescueTime (blog), May 10, 2018,
https://blog.rescuetime.com/communication-multitasking/
.
11
. Deirdre Boden, The Business of Talk: Organizations in Action (Cambridge, UK: Polity
Press, 1994), 211. It should be noted that Boden was not unreservedly positive about
this development in knowledge work. She also predicted that these “interactive”
workplaces would be “technologically complex” and “interpersonally demanding.”
12
. See, for example, this classic paper on the prefrontal cortex and attention, which has
been cited more than ten thousand times since its 2001 publication: Earl K. Miller and
Jonathan D. Cohen, “An Integrative Theory of Prefrontal Cortex Function,” Annual
Review of Neuroscience 24 (March 2001): 167–202.
13
. Adam Gazzaley and Larry D. Rosen, The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-
Tech World (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016), 77.
14
. A. T. Jersild, “Mental Set and Shift,” Archives of Psychology 14, no. 89 (1927): 1–81. This
paper, along with other key papers on executive control functions that I consulted, was
brought to my attention by the useful literature review included in the following paper:
Joshua S. Rubinstein, David E. Meyer, and Jeffrey E. Evans, “Executive Control of
Cognitive Processes in Task Switching,” Journal of Experimental Psychology 27, no. 4
(2001): 763–97.
15
. Gazzaley and Rosen note that these experiments are easy to try on yourself at home.
They suggest the following version: Time how long it takes to go through the alphabet
from A to J, and then through the numbers from 1 to 10. Next, time how long it takes
for you to combine these tasks by dual counting: i.e., A1, B2, C3, and so on. You should
notice a difference, as the letter and number counting draw on two different networks.
16
. Sophie Leroy, “Why Is It So Hard to Do My Work? The Challenge of Attention Residue
When Switching between Work Tasks,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision
Processes 109, no. 2 (July 2009): 168–81.
17
. Paul Graham, “Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule,” July 2009,
www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html
.
18
. “Marshall Retires as Chief of Staff,” George C. Marshall Foundation, November 17, 2017,
www.marshallfoundation.org/blog/marshall-retires-chief-staff/
.
19
. For more on George Marshall’s career timeline, see “George C. Marshall: Timeline &
Chronology,” George C. Marshall Foundation,
www.marshallfoundation.org/marshall/timeline-chronology/
.
20
. Lt. Col. Paul G. Munch, “General George C. Marshall and the Army Staff: A Study in
Effective Staff Leadership” (research paper, National War College, Washington, DC,
March 19, 1992), 
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA437156
.
21
. Christopher C. Rosen et al., “Boxed In by Your Inbox: Implications of Daily E-mail
Demands for Managers’ Leadership Behaviors,” Journal of Applied Psychology 104,
no. 1 (2019): 19–33.
22
. For more on the history of help-desk software, see, for example, Arthur Zuckerman,
“History of Help Desk Software: Evolution and Future Trends,” CompareCamp.com,
February 2015, 
https://comparecamp.com/history-of-help-desk-software-evolution-
and-future-trends/
.
23
. The primary source for this quote is a 1983 interview of Angelou conducted by Claudia
Tate (in Conversations with Maya Angelou, ed. Jeffrey M. Elliot [Jackson: University
Press of Mississippi, 1989], 146–56). As with many compelling anecdotes about artists’

---

creative habits, I first came across this quote in Mason Currey’s underground classic
book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work (New York: Knopf, 2013).
24
. An addendum to this tale: When I followed up with Sean in 2019, three years after my
initial interviews, his company had by then dissolved—for personal reasons unrelated
to productivity, I hasten to add—preventing me from reporting on how his shift from
the hyperactive hive mind evolved over time. In more recent correspondence, however,
Sean assured me that if he ends up once again leading a large team, he plans to put in
place similar alternatives to the hive mind—the sound of Slack notifications still makes
him shiver.