I Can't Stop Checking My Email. So My Work Twin Reads It First.
It's like an addiction. I can't help it. Now my Work Twin reads the pile first.
They tell you not to check your email until the afternoon.
They tell you to only check it a certain number of times a day. They tell you to turn off your notifications.
I don’t care how many different ways they tell me. It’s like an addiction. I can’t help it.
The little notification pops up, and I’m there. The little envelope shows up that says you have a new email, and I’m there.
I even took the pop-up off. I was still going over there. I was still looking.
And the minute you get over there, you have to read it. That’s the only way to find out if your name is even on it.
A lot of the time it isn’t. I get copied by multiple people on things where there’s not even anything for me to do.
So I just go there. It sucks up my time. And I pour out my life.
Then there are the ones that are for me.
I have written the same careful email about forty-seven times. The polite one. The one that says “just following up” in a way that sounds friendly but means “I already asked you this.”
It’s not hard work. That’s what makes it so exhausting. Hard work at least gives you something back. This just takes.
And the inbox doesn’t clock out when I do. Nobody really leaves at five anyway. I stay to catch the ones I didn’t get to, because stuff just kept happening all day. Then I’d lie in bed wondering if I ever sent that one email.
I didn’t go looking for a fix. I didn’t know there was one.
I just got tired enough to ask Claude Code a question. If you can do things, can you do this?
It could.
Now my Work Twin reads the pile first. A digital coworker who actually reads the whole thread.
It tells me who is really waiting on me, and who just wanted me to know something. All those emails I got copied on, with nothing for me to do? It tells me which ones those are, so I don’t have to open every one to find out.
It drafts the replies in my voice. The polite follow-up. All of it. It even pulls the phone numbers out of those long email chains, so I can pick up the phone and call instead of scrolling back to find the one with the number in it.
I still read every reply before it goes. I’m still the one who hits send.
The envelope still shows up. People still copy me on things that have nothing to do with me.
The difference is what’s waiting when I get there. It’s sorted. The drafts are sitting there like a stack of mail somebody already opened and put in order.
I find out right away if my name is on it.
And that one email I used to lie awake about? Handled. I checked with Claude Code before I went to bed. Then I went to sleep.
Me, Claude, and the work I don’t do anymore. That’s the whole blog.