too many emails!

Cal Newport (CS professor, author of Digital Minimalism) contemplates the “irony in the history of technology that the development of synchronous distributed computer systems has been used to create a communication style in which we are always out of synch” in this new yorker article. Lots of good stuff, but my favorite part is the anecdote of a CEO who has managed to reduce the time spent battling the inbox - “Recently, the founder and C.E.O. of a publicly traded technology company told me that he spends at most two or three hours a week sending and receiving e-mails; he has replaced most of his asynchronous messaging with a ‘regular rhythm’ of meetings, which allows him to efficiently address issues in real time. ‘If you keep needing to send me urgent messages, then my assumption is that there’s something broken about the way you’re doing business,’ he said.”

It reminds me of an anecdote of that Dan Carlin shares in this podcast, about General Joffre, a leader of French forces in WWI. Joffre instructed his subordinates that, even during some of the most severe/dire fighting, he was not to be interrupted during mealtimes or sleep.

You can either be a doer/leader; or just a message-responder. I’m probably the latter ;)