Ryan Smith

“While email use certainly saves people time and effort in communicating,” the authors of the 2016 study conclude, “it also comes at a cost.” Their recommendation? “[We] suggest that organizations make a concerted effort to cut down on email traffic.”
― Cal Newport, A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload

“The French philosopher rejected the notion of the advance of civilisation. He rejected the idea–still taught in schools today–that we started out as grunting cavemen, all bashing each other’s brains in. That it was agriculture and private property that finally brought us peace, safety and prosperity. And that these gifts were eagerly embraced by our ancestors, who were tired of going hungry and fighting all the time.”
― Rutger Bregman, Humankind: A Hopeful History

“As I argued, when you delegate productivity decisions to the individual, it’s not surprising that you end up stuck with a simple, flexible, lowest common denominator–style workflow like the hyperactive hive mind.”
― Cal Newport, A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload

“My research had reminded me of the custom of ta’arof, or never saying exactly what you mean, and three-part refusals. But I’d barely guessed, when reading of Iran, how hard it might be in life to tell where custom ends and conviction begins.”
― Pico Iyer, The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise