HEURISTIC TO AVOID METASTATIC EMAILS

We fail to realize that technology is nonlinear to dosage, that in small doses the side effects are minimal (they are highly convex), but in larger doses they take over.

For instance, to avoid email correspondence from becoming metastatic, put a lower bound of 31 days before replying to any message of noncurrent nature (such as appointments, orders, etc.) I was thus able to lower the number of message from several hundred emails a day in 2005 to an average of < 20 in 2012. The advantage of such a method is that people who are insensitive about other people’s time get offended and go away, while the thoughtful ones are pleased to see a reply several months after they sent the message, when they forgot about it.

via HEURISTIC TO AVOID METASTATIC EMAILS We… – Nassim Nicholas Taleb | Facebook.