A World Without Email

A World Without Email presents a utopia where people engage in their usual professional activities without using emails as a means of communication, and explores a new way of working that doesn’t rely on instant messaging, which is known for decreasing productivity at the workplace.

Everyone uses emails at work – it’s just the way things are right now. Emails keep us connected and enhance collaboration within teams. Sounds good? That’s what the companies thought. However, it seems that communication through inboxes might do more harm than good.

On average, a worker checks their email every six minutes. One-third of our working day is spent navigating inboxes, and the average knowledge worker does an hour and 15 minutes of productive work a day, according to a study conducted by RescueTime.

The main reason behind these demotivating numbers is that emails and notifications became like an addiction to us. And organizational cultures are pushing them to keep the collaborative flow going and increase responsiveness. The intention behind this concept is good, but in practice, it kills productivity.

That is because we are wired to only focus on one thing at a time. And keeping many tabs open and working with information in the back of our mind just doesn’t sit well with the prefrontal cortex. The result? Decreased attention, a lack of focus, and increased stress levels.

Emails are outdated project assignation tools, and for a reason. They decrease the attention span by keeping employees hooked to a constantly open tab. Not only that, but they also get messy and unstructured.

Instead, business thinkers like Peter Drucker have better ideas when it comes to improving the workflow. Drucker acknowledged two types of work: the knowledge workers and the factory-type workers.

Factory-type workers are most efficient when they divide their work into smaller chunks and are responsible for their own small area of activity. With knowledge workers, things get a bit more complicated, because you can’t tell them how to be creative, but you can’t monitor them and inhibit their creative thinking.

However, what you can do is interfere with the way they do things or their framework. Apps like Trello or Flow are specialized in assigning tasks and they limit the use of email to a great extent. This is great news because as we all know, emails do inhibit productivity.

Make sure to include employees in the workflow change and give them autonomy in their decisions. Always double-check with them to see if they like and agree with the changes and what tasks they’d like to receive.