The curse of email and other admin tasks

Our colleague Mila Koeva pointed me at the blogpost here referenced, after having had a lunch conversation that you might label as "the curse of emails." I am suffering sometimes ...

This blogpost is tremendous, and a must-read for anyone with (the ambition for) an academic career.

The blogpost is written by Cal Newport of The Chronicle. It describes how the famous mathematician and computer scientist Donald Knuth decided to ban email from his life in 1990, and his reason for doing so. The article looks back at that decision and reflects on the use of email as well as how academia have changed in recent decades.

I admit being an admirer of Knuth, as some of you know. He is a perfectionist scientist, an eloquent writer, now an enigma almost, and he is also the designer and implementer of TeX. Rest my case; shook his hand once.

Read that article. It makes one think.