Hello and welcome back to You’re Doing Too Much—a short read for busy leaders who want to grow by hiring, offloading, and letting others step in.

This week we’re looking at interruptions (the silent productivity killer) and how to stop carrying them all yourself.

Let’s protect your focus.

Your calendar isn’t the only thing stealing your time. It is the tiny interruptions: Slack notifications, “got a sec?” drop-ins, or quick favors that balloon into half-hour detours.

Most leaders underestimate how much context-switching drains their energy. If you are wondering why you end the day exhausted despite not touching your big priorities, this is it.

Like what I’ve mentioned last week, every message doesn’t need your eyes first. You are not the help desk. If your team or assistant can answer a huge percentage of incoming requests with a saved reply, a doc link, or a redirect, you have just bought yourself back hours each week.

Set up a “default response” system.

For the next week, every time someone pings you, pause and ask:

Pro tip: Have your EA or a trusted team member become the first responder. Their job is not to solve everything. It is to filter what actually needs your brain from what just needs a pointer.

I had a client who set a simple rule with the team: If the severity of the problem is below an 8 out of 10, please don’t disturb me.

It changed everything. He wasn’t being pulled into every scheduling conflict, minor bug, or last-minute request anymore. The team learned to self-solve, escalate only when it truly mattered, and respect his focus time.

I even swapped his face into this Chamath meme that says, “That is below my line.” It cracked us both up and became the perfect shorthand.

The beauty of this rule is its simplicity. Most leaders get caught in the trap of thinking they need to weigh in on every decision to keep things moving. In reality, you only need to step in when the stakes are high enough to warrant it.

You can make this work for you, too:

The result is fewer interruptions, faster decisions, and a team that feels trusted. And you get to spend your time where it matters most: solving the 8s, 9s, and 10s not the 2s and 3s.

Sometimes you already know what you want to delegate, you just don’t know how to word it. That’s when tasks get stuck. You think, “I should have my EA handle more of my inbox or messages”, but then you freeze because you‘re not sure how to frame the ask without sounding vague.

This is where a clear, testable email helps. It sets expectations, gives your support person the confidence to act, and makes the handoff feel safe because it is framed as a trial run.

Here is one you can copy, paste, and send today:

Subject: Help with managing messages

Hi [Your Support Professional’s Name],

I’d like your help managing my incoming messages so I can stay focused on bigger priorities. Can we try this system for a week?

Let’s test it, see how it feels, and adjust.

Thanks for giving this a try! I think it could make a big difference.

Fyxer AI – An AI-powered executive assistant that works by plugging directly into your existing tools like Gmail, Outlook, Google Meet, and Zoom. It learns your unique writing style from past emails and meetings, so when you need to reply, it drafts responses in your voice and organizes your inbox so you only see what matters.

📌 Tip: If you are not ready to hand your Slack or email account over to an assistant, Fyxer gives you a way to offload that communication load to AI instead.

That’s it for this week. If your days have been hijacked by interruptions, take this as your sign to stop being the bottleneck and start building a filter.

Your brain deserves longer stretches of clarity. And your business deserves a leader who is not always half-distracted.

Until next time :)