The Reply Spiral

Every ping is a tiny dopamine hit. Every response feels urgent. Every thread pulls you deeper into the quicksand of other people's agendas.

You've been tricked into feeling like being responsive is being productive.

The person who sends you fourteen emails about the same topic isn't more organized than you—they're less organized. The colleague who expects an immediate response to their non-urgent question hasn't thought through the cost of interruption.

Your attention is finite. Your inbox is infinite.

And you don't need AI to help you. You don't need smart sorting or priority inboxes or the latest productivity app with features you'll never use.

You need discipline.

Check email at appointed times. Respond in batches. Let some threads die natural deaths.

The world will not end if you take a day to respond to a non-urgent email.

The reply loop is optional. The work that matters isn't.