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Best productivity story from this book: a White House worker brings President Eisenhower a piece of unopened mail addressed to the President. Ike immediately says “No one should ever bring me a sealed envelope” and he drills into his team that nothing comes to the President unless it can’t be resolved at a lower level, and when it comes to him he needs to be briefed and presented with his staff’s best thinking and possible options.

> Ike immediately says “No one should ever bring me a sealed envelope”

This is correct to the best of my knowledge; the actual opening of said mail should have been handled by the White House Office of Presidential Correspondence, established in 1897.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_Office_of_Presiden...

I was a bit curious about what this process looks like in relatively modern times, and found this video from the President Obama White House YouTube channel from 2009:

Inside the White House: Letters to the President

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG00mM8QEGk

Appreciate the link, and I upvoted for visibility but removed referral code etc, which is against HN Guidelines imo:

https://www.amazon.com/Eisenhower-in-War-and-Peace-audiobook...