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

The Attention Capital Principle
The productivity of the knowledge sector can be significantly increased if we
identify workflows that better optimize the human brain’s ability to sustainably add
value to information.
In the industrial sector, the primary capital resources were
materials and equipment.
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 Some ways of deploying this capital
returned far more value than others (think: the assembly line versus
the craft method). In the knowledge sector, by contrast, the primary
capital resources are the human brains you employ to add value to
information—what I call attention capital. But the same dynamics
hold: different strategies for deploying this capital will generate
different returns. Based on the evidence I reviewed in part 1, it’s clear
that the brain-addling constant network switching required by the
hyperactive hive mind is far from optimal, providing, in some sense,
the cognitive equivalent of the old craft method for building cars. To
obtain the dramatic productivity increases that Peter Drucker
prophesied for the twenty-first century will require a commitment to
finding approaches to knowledge work that can generate much better
returns.
The chapters that follow will explore specific ideas about what
these better deployments of attention capital might include. You’ll
learn about the value of switching your focus from optimizing people
to optimizing processes, and about the importance of separating
specialized work from administrative efforts. You’ll also hear my
argument for greatly reducing the raw quantity of work that the
average knowledge worker is quixotically expected to complete, and
you’ll encounter many case studies along the way of individuals, like
Lasse Rheingans, and organizations that are willing to experiment
with better alternatives. Before moving on to these specifics,
however, the remainder of this chapter will focus on a collection of
general best practices for putting the attention capital principle into
action.