(A) Tiered Reachability Principle – you should only encounter messages when either (a) you want to or (b when they are truly unignorable and urgent. How and when people can reach you for each should be clearly understood.
When doing task X or searching for messages about a particular task X, you should not encounter any distracting messages from task Y or task Z and especially do not encounter messages that require you to take action.
You should be reachable when it is genuinely important and urgent, but at all other times you should decide when to engage and others shouldn’t be able to decide for you.
However, other people should roughly know when you will respond if it is important but not urgent.
Generally, we should try to somewhat increase the cost it takes for someone to reach you so that it more matches the cost of being reached.)
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(B Seamlessness Principle – Your system should be as seamless as possible for those outside the system. It’s on you to make your system work, not others.
You shouldn’t have to make a big deal out of your system and publicize it.
You should just deliver on what you want to do and don’t drop any balls.
Design your system defensively and intentionally so that it works well for you with minimal effort required on behalf of other people.)
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(C The Minimalism Principle – We need to do less stuff.
Reject FOMO. We need to enjoy missing out rather than fear it.
We should just collectively give ourselves the permission to let go and focus on fewer things.
Try to practice some sort of digital minimalism and ruthlessly curate what you are - and more importantly, what you are not - going to keep track of.
Reduce the number of people you collaborate with.
Don’t feel the responsibility to know about and keep track of everything.
We should make more liberal use of assistants where and when possible.)
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Consider communicating your workflow through a “working with me doc”.
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Consider a “no meeting” day every week (case for, case against).
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- [note::Recently implemented by FORT. Whether it's effective is TBD.]

Have a business “Attention capital ombudsman” at your organization that is responsible for identifying and removing distractions.
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- [note::Reminds me of "Communications Tiger Team" at FORT]

Don’t use external-facing personal emails and instead use team or department emails.
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Just try to actually be genuinely unreachable. It seems to work well for some people (see also.
Be completely unreachable except during pre-defined office hours.)
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(highlight:: A big contribution to the overwhelm of messages is all the work you have to do to decide what is relevant and important to you and how to act on this. I think it would be a lot easier if people applied the one hand rule:
Imagine the person you’re emailing going from one meeting to the next and checking their inbox between meetings. Could they reply to your email while waiting for Zoom to launch? Could they send off a response in the time that it takes to walk from the bus or their car to the office? Or will they glance at the email, see that it requires a longer reply than they have time to type, and set it aside for later (which may never come)?"
This involves keeping questions to yes/no or multiple choice, make an initial recommendation / default, make everything clear upfront but provide background at the end as necessary. This link has some examples.)
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To avoid spending too much time on communications, it helps to have a good picture of what you should be spending your time on. Take a 40hr work week and carve it up into how you think you ought to spend it and develop time budgets and time management from there. For more, see “How To Craft A Perfect, Productive 40-Hour Workweek”.
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