How To Escape the 'Hyperactive Hivemind' of Modern Work (bbc.com) 78
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Our workplaces are set up for convenience, not to get the best out of our brains, says Cal Newport, bestselling author of books including Deep Work and Digital Minimalism, and a Georgetown University professor. In knowledge sector jobs, where products are created using human intelligence rather than machines, we must be switched on at all times and prepared to multitask. These are two things that are not compatible with deep, creative, insightful thinking. "In knowledge work, the main resource is the human brain and its ability to produce new information with value," says Newport. "But we are not good at getting a good return." Being switched on at all times and expected to pick things up immediately makes us miserable, says Newport. "It mismatches with the social circuits in our brain. It makes us feel bad that someone is waiting for us to reply to them. It makes us anxious."
Because it is so easy to dash off a quick reply on email, Slack or other messaging apps, we feel guilty for not doing so, and there is an expectation that we will do it. This, says Newport, has greatly increased the number of things on people's plates. "The average knowledge worker is responsible for more things than they were before email. This makes us frenetic. We should be thinking about how to remove the things on their plate, not giving people more to do." What might being wired for work at all times lead to? Inevitably, burnout. Newport describes this way of working as a "hyperactive hivemind." Unstructured conversations on messaging apps and meetings dropped into diaries on the fly congest our day. His objective, to give people the space to do their best work without distraction, is the subject of his next book: The World Without Email. Newport's idea is to allow workers to do less work, but better. Cutting out unnecessary chatter is important but only if the organization's culture allows for slower communication. Newport advocates for a more linear approach to workflows. "People need to completely stop one task in order to fully transition their thought processes to the next one," reports the BBC. "However, this is hard when we are constantly seeing emails or being reminded about previous tasks. Some of our thoughts are still on the previous work -- an effect called attention residue."
While it is very convenient to have everyone in an ongoing conversation, such as in a Slack thread, Newport says convenience is never the goal in business, it is value. "The assembly line revolutionized car production but it is not a convenient system -- it is the system that produces the most cars quickly."
Because it is so easy to dash off a quick reply on email, Slack or other messaging apps, we feel guilty for not doing so, and there is an expectation that we will do it. This, says Newport, has greatly increased the number of things on people's plates. "The average knowledge worker is responsible for more things than they were before email. This makes us frenetic. We should be thinking about how to remove the things on their plate, not giving people more to do." What might being wired for work at all times lead to? Inevitably, burnout. Newport describes this way of working as a "hyperactive hivemind." Unstructured conversations on messaging apps and meetings dropped into diaries on the fly congest our day. His objective, to give people the space to do their best work without distraction, is the subject of his next book: The World Without Email. Newport's idea is to allow workers to do less work, but better. Cutting out unnecessary chatter is important but only if the organization's culture allows for slower communication. Newport advocates for a more linear approach to workflows. "People need to completely stop one task in order to fully transition their thought processes to the next one," reports the BBC. "However, this is hard when we are constantly seeing emails or being reminded about previous tasks. Some of our thoughts are still on the previous work -- an effect called attention residue."
While it is very convenient to have everyone in an ongoing conversation, such as in a Slack thread, Newport says convenience is never the goal in business, it is value. "The assembly line revolutionized car production but it is not a convenient system -- it is the system that produces the most cars quickly."
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It ain't hard - close the fucking apps that get in your way.
And no, you are NOT special and able to multi-task better than everyone else. Unless you think writing shitty, buggy code is a positive...
Do you work in a large corporation? This isn't the problem. I have no delusions about my capacity to multi-task, nor do I think I'm going to come up with an optimal solution in 1 hour in a conference room smelling everyones coffee breath or BO.
The way things work, if you can't do that, or don't do it, managemen
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I think this is often easier said than done.
IMHO, there's a bunch of interrelated problems.
One might be too much "project management", which too often amounts to a non-technical administration role constantly requesting information which needs to be boiled down into details they can understand. This is generally made worse by micromanagement -- where I work, we have a principal who scans open tickets and demands explanations for a bunch of stuff, even though he doesn't actually contribute to solving issues
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Now that I'm less coding and more other stuff, I see lack of project management being a big problem. A manager says "hey, do this" with zero concept of what that entails or the resources it will take. Forcing that person to sit down with a project manager to lay out the project and calling in people to consult on what it will take to do it often gets them to reconsider that project. Or realize that the decision to invest that sort of company resources is above their pay-grade, and they need to ask their man
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People can and SHOULD get information instantly, because they're often not able to work until they have it.
If you dead stop because you lack information, this is a failure of planning and a larger information sharing. Expecting instantaneous communication, always, simply corrodes the value of other information sharing methods, like documentation/notes or meetings. In theory if we have universal instant communication those other things, which people tend to hate because they are time consuming, appear to be even more time consuming and redundant and they don't get done.
Good notes, good documentation, discipline
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People can and SHOULD get information instantly, because they're often not able to work until they have it.
The problem with that is that then others are not able to work because they're too busy providing information instantly to actually get anything done.
If you have many situations where people need information instantly to get their work done, you have divided the work up incorrectly.
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Closing the app is easy. Ignoring the app is easy. Getting the pointy haired boss to not blow his stack because he sent you an email 10 seconds ago and you haven't replied yet is hard.
Linear workflow (Score:4, Interesting)
If a person is stressed by having multiple things to do, and multiple problems to solve at the same time, they are in the wrong job.
The Good Doctor Newport appears to be assigning everyone to that status. I could be in a minority, but I enjoy troubleshooting multiple problems, assigning rankings and making it all work.
It is simply not possible to make all work linear. And if we did, it would be much more of a hivemind that what he decries.
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Hi Mr. Manager Ol Olsoc! It's so great to have you here.
Besides being an obvious tie-wearing, carpet-creeping PHB you have obviously drank every last drop of the Kool-Aid, licked the cup clean and asked for seconds.
Ohh - U mad Bro?
I don't know how many times I have had the joy of deciding if I should work on a project assigned by my manager or one assigned by someone who will undoubtedly make my manager's life Hell if I don't work on their project.
Quick solution - ask. You are pretty obviously a linear person, and anyhow, the best advice my supervisor gave me a long time ago is the best way for you to solve your problem is make it someone else's problem. You go to your supervisor and get him or her to set a priority.
The entire situation, day-in and day-out becomes one of "damned if you do and damned if you don't" and management doesn't care because they can replace you at the drop of a hat.
Quick solution - don't be so easiily replaceable. I know it will be difficult for you because of your shit attitude, and your odd embracement of your victimhood. I never could figure that out. People like you who think tha
Oh really? (Score:2)
" I could be in a minority, but I enjoy troubleshooting multiple problems, assigning rankings and making it all work"
Very few people are good at genuinely multitasking, they just think they are.Any time you spend on 1 problem is time not spent on the others so instead of solving 1 thing properly you're probably coming up with some half arsed solution to 3 or 4 things.
And thats before we get onto the point that to be good in IT you need to have a mind that can think sequentially/linearly and properly join th
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" I could be in a minority, but I enjoy troubleshooting multiple problems, assigning rankings and making it all work"
Very few people are good at genuinely multitasking, they just think they are.Any time you spend on 1 problem is time not spent on the others so instead of solving 1 thing properly you're probably coming up with some half arsed solution to 3 or 4 things.
And thats before we get onto the point that to be good in IT you need to have a mind that can think sequentially/linearly and properly join the dots.
I have no issue with thinking in a linear fashion. But I can also handle multiple tasks at once, and do a good job on all. My employer always called that "fast on your feet." Some can do it, some can't. I happen to enjoy it, and the people I am working for now are quite happy as well.
In fact, this linear workplace that he espouses, and the apparent wish of so many Slashdotters for a "I do one thing, and I do not do another thing until I am finished with the first thing, is my version of workplace hell. A
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"But I can also handle multiple tasks at once, and do a good job on all"
Sure, you keep telling yourself that. Perhaps even you'll believe it one day.
Task saturation (Score:5, Insightful)
is for linear people.
Literally every human is a terrible multi-tasker and there is endless research backing this up. Myself included. Some of us handle multiple tasks better than others but our brains literally cannot do more than one thing at a time effectively. Just not how we are wired.
I could be in a minority, but I enjoy troubleshooting multiple problems, assigning rankings and making it all work.
I prefer to wear multiple hats in my job too but I don't perform well when I try to wear them all at once. I'm sure you aren't actually doing multiple problems simultaneously. You are simply task switching more rapidly than average. My job is like that that. I would go nuts doing the same thing all day every day.
If a person is stressed by having multiple things to do, and multiple problems to solve at the same time, they are in the wrong job.
Being stressed about having a full schedule doesn't mean someone is bad at it. And everyone has their task saturation limits. EVERYONE. Some can deal with a more chaotic work flow more gracefully than others but even the best of us aren't great at doing multiple things at once.
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is for linear people.
Literally every human is a terrible multi-tasker and there is endless research backing this up. Myself included. Some of us handle multiple tasks better than others but our brains literally cannot do more than one thing at a time effectively. Just not how we are wired.
While it is nice to assume that all human brains are a homogenous structure of sameness, really, they are not. I'm not going to do 100 simultaneous spherical geometry problems in my head at one time. work on several problems at the same time. Hell man, I dream solutions to problems.
I could be in a minority, but I enjoy troubleshooting multiple problems, assigning rankings and making it all work.
I prefer to wear multiple hats in my job too but I don't perform well when I try to wear them all at once. I'm sure you aren't actually doing multiple problems simultaneously. You are simply task switching more rapidly than average. My job is like that that. I would go nuts doing the same thing all day every day.
Task switching is certainly the portion that is what is going on when dealing with people. And I don't have two computers typing different papers on at the same time. But my mind does allow me to have one task working in the back
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Wow, how pompous, arrogant, and dismissive, and just in line with your other replies. I feel sorry for your wife!
At least I don't drop to Coward status to reply to people.
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It's not about multitasking. It's about the sheer volume of meaningless no value compelled actions. It isn't just "knowledge work." The nonsense is there in plants that produce physical product as well.
And the anonymous coward here knows the correct way, the genius cutting of work tasks down to their bare esssentials that will raise America to prominence once again , as no one has anything but one task to do, does that one task very well, and only after that one task is finished, moves on to the next one task. Rinse and repeat, the hivemind is dead, and the American worker is finally happy becauase there is no buillshit, and nothing else in the way of that one task.
Have you considered getting work on a
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Of course, we're *all* linear people. This has been proven by multiple studies. You're not nearly as good at multitasking as you think you are.
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Linearity is also a feature of the work itself. For creative work, I like having 2 or 3 different (sub)?projects going on. Different as in one of programming and one of music, for example, so they use different areas of the brain. Creative work needs periods of rest for subconscious development, but it doesn't have to be actual rest as long as I'm doing something different enough. The projects also feed on each other in unexpected ways.
Not all work is creative in this way, and sometimes you have to focus
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Linearity is also a feature of the work itself. For creative work, I like having 2 or 3 different (sub)?projects going on. Different as in one of programming and one of music, for example, so they use different areas of the brain. Creative work needs periods of rest for subconscious development, but it doesn't have to be actual rest as long as I'm doing something different enough. The projects also feed on each other in unexpected ways.
Not all work is creative in this way, and sometimes you have to focus on things like data entry. Of course, creative projects also have their areas of deep linear focus.
Exactly. Excellent and insightful post. Data entry is a good example of a mode that needs in the moment focus. But that doesn't mean I can't have those other portions of my brain thinking.
I liken it to when I am doing 3-D rendering. I start a render then work on something else. while the render takes place in the background. Does it take longer to render? Maybe. It might take 5 minutes longer out of an hour and a half, while I write a paper. But if I devote all my efforts on the render and just sit ther
Tell management (Score:4, Insightful)
The workers didn't make assembling cars faster by creating the assembly line, it was management that organized work into an assembly line. It's not up to the worker to make work more efficient, it's to do the work they are presented with. It is up to management to organize the work for other workers.
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It is up to management to organize the work for other workers.
The easiest and most obvious way to temporarily increase productivity is to slave-drive crazy overtime. This is go-to solution for mediocre management faced with difficult deadlines, so suggesting reasonable process improvement to management is often necessary step to forestall said "solution".
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Sure, but on some level, people have to still decide how they're going to work. Management can, for example, make a decision to pay for Slack or not, to allow Slack or not. Management can even encourage workers to use Slack in certain ways, and limit their use of Slack in certain ways. However, in the end, each user has to make decisions about how and when to use Slack.
The technology has changed rapidly over the past few decades. We need to develop a culture of healthy habits, and we haven't done that
Some degree of parallel thought is useful though (Score:2)
People need to completely stop one task in order to fully transition their thought processes to the next one.
I'm not sure this is wholly true - this is useful to some degree, but I've found it's useful to have at least some small part of your mind considering another issue or two. By letting your mind mull over some issues in the background great ideas can come to you, that really help when you are ready to switch back to them - or make it easier to transition to some other task if you become stuck or bloc
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Human multi-tasking is QUITE limited. You can often get away with doing two entirely different types of things at once (sweeping the floor while solving a logic problem), but if you try to work on two problems requiring logical thought at the same time, you'll just burn resources switching back and forth.
If one of the tasks is lower priority or has very loose deadlines, you may gain insights by switching from your primary task when you get stuck and going back after a few minutes but that's about the extent
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Productivity (Score:2)
Because it is so easy to dash off a quick reply on email, Slack or other messaging apps, we feel guilty for not doing so, and there is an expectation that we will do it.
When I'm not at work I don't look at work emails and I certainly don't feel guilty about it. (Don't use Slack or similar nor does anyone I work with) I keep my work and life separate. When I'm at work I respond to emails that need responding to and ignore the rest. If someone wastes my time and expects me to cater to an unreasonable expectation of responding to them then that is their problem, not mine. It's been my experience that email is a giant time sink if you let it become one. It's no differen
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If someone wastes my time and expects me to cater to an unreasonable expectation of responding to them then that is their problem, not mine. It's been my experience that email is a giant time sink if you let it become one. It's no different than sitting in endless (useless) meetings.
Other than management above me, my general philosophy is that if you want me at a meeting, I need the agenda ahead of time, along with the planned outcomes of the meeting. And the agenda needs to be chunked at least into 20 minute segments.
Making that well known means I don't get invited to a lot of meetings anymore, and it seems that less are happening as well. If you're going to waste $300/hr of collective employee time, you'd better be sure that you've got a plan to get $300 out of that meeting.
Now there
What do you mean, "we"? (Score:2)
Ah, that's why I don't feel stressed by the "Hyperactive Hivemind". I feel absolutely no compulsion to check my messages off-hours, and even when I'm working I feel no guilt for not responding to messages quickly. In fact, messaging tools allow me to defer questions to when I have a moment to answer them, unlike phone calls and in-person vis
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It's comical to read this at work! (Score:3)
That's all, just an observation that I have switched from working to reading Slashdot for a bit.
Context switching is a massive waste of time. Probably over 20% these days (IMs, Teams, Email, even phone calls, text messages).
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Would you whiny princesses prefer manual work?
Some days, yes. My manual days were nice; i could leave work and work was done. There was no thinking in the back of my head about how I was going to mow the next lawn and re-pipe the next irrigation system tomorrow. Of course it was physically exhausting, but I was free to think. After work these days, I want to veg.
Cliche "What's wrong with us?" Book (Score:3)
"In knowledge work, the main resource is the human brain and its ability to produce new information with value," says Newport.
No, not really. In knowledge work, the main resource is using the human brain as a systems processor that can make discretionary judgements based on the information provided, the individual's experience, and the individual's colleagues (as necessary). If everyone in knowledge work were creative artists, nothing would get done. They'd all be writing self-help books.
When it comes to being overwhelmed with the amount of simultaneous tasks and deadlines, the worker needs to have a talk with colleagues and management to discuss burn-out, its cascading effects on colleagues due to absenteeism, and the need to hire more workers. If that seems like an impossible task, then so should submitting "deep, creative, insightful thinking" as one's work product and accepting the resulting criticism.
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I found this counter-argument very intellectually interesting. Is the real value of the human brain in knowledge work:
a) synthesis, the combining of information and creating new information of increased gestalt value
or
b) experience-based situational overlays, and using that to feed decision making
The second one is almost exactly what AI aims to solve, in terms of training AIs to make decisions.
They both also rely heavily on pattern recognition. a) because you are seeking patterns and relationships to create
Comment removed (Score:3)
"productivity" (Score:2)
My work email is disabled (Score:2)