I noticed something about my own work habits last week. I was catching up on three days of Slack messages after a trip, and it took me nearly two hours just to understand what had happened. Then I thought about founders I know who use AI to summarize their communications before they even open their inbox.
That second approach isn't about being lazy. It's about recognizing that information processing is a bottleneck. The founder who spends their morning reading 500 messages isn't leading, they're doing data entry on their own company's activity.
I've started experimenting with AI briefings for my async communications. It doesn't replace judgment, but it changes when decisions happen. Instead of spending the first hours of the day reconstructing context, you're already making calls by mid-morning.
The tradeoff is real though. Some founders feel anxious about not reading everything themselves, worried they'll miss something important. That anxiety is valid, but it might also be the thing holding you back from actually running the company instead of just monitoring it.
Has anyone else found a system that works for them? I'm curious how other founders are handling this.
Top comments (0)