If only! Productivity expert Cal Newport makes a compelling argument against the way we use email now, and anyone who struggles with overflowing inboxes will learn from what he writes. But he doesn’t have much to offer in the way of alternatives, particularly for individuals. The tools he recommends — Trello, Doodle — are well-known and I for one use them. He trashes Slack, and rightly so, and seems pretty dismissive of most instant messaging services — right again. He’s a big fan of face to face meetings (that didn’t work out very well during the pandemic lockdowns). He also thinks some organisations may have rushed things when they sacked all the personal assistants and told managers to look after their own calendars. So, no magic bullet then. It looks like email might be around for a while longer.