The Overhead of Coordination and Collaboration in Knowledge Work

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Overhead of coordinating and collaborating work is causing problems with overload. People feel like they have two jobs, the jobs they were hired to do but also this other job of communicating, coordinating and collaborating. Workload management has to be a critical part of this solution. It's not just how many hours is this thing going to take, but also what's the overhead going to be?

Few professional experiences feel worse than overload. But what really causes this unfortunate state? In this episode, Cal takes a closer look at overload, identifying its main culprits, identifying solutions, and helping listeners with their specific overload-related questions.

Below are the questions covered in today's episode (with their timestamps). Get your questions answered by Cal! Here’s the link: bit.ly/3U3sTvo

Video from today’s episode: youtube.com/calnewportmedia

Today’s Deep Question: How does overload actually operate? [3:54]

- Does Cal use an executive assistant? [26:15]

- How do I write an effective communication policy for my team? [36:35]

- Does overhead compound exponentially? [42:50]

- How rare are high expectation/low overhead jobs? [48:05]

- My job has few shallow obligations. What should I do with my free time? [51:41]

Something Interesting: The future of social media is less social [59:39]

Links:

wsj.com/articles/workers-say-its-harder-to-get-things-done-now-heres-why-2a5f1389

nytimes.com/2023/04/19/technology/personaltech/tiktok-twitter-facebook-social.html