The Fine Line Between “Work About Work” and the Work That Matters
You’re reading Playbooks & Priorities, a newsletter about working, parenting, and working parenthood.
Work about work is not work. You’ve heard it before. "Work about work"—the status updates, endless meetings, and unnecessary coordination that make us feel busy without actually moving anything forward- as I’ve said before: work about work is not work.
And I stand by that. But there's one thing to clarify.
The difference between work about work and the work that matters isn't whether you're in Slack, Linear, or your inbox—it's what comes out of it. Sorting through messages isn't valuable in itself, but it's often necessary to find and understand the actual work that needs to be done.
Why Work Feels Overwhelming: Too Many Digital Homes
Even if you work from the same home office every day, your work doesn't live in one neat location—it's scattered across multiple tools:
77 unread Slack messages across 20 different channels
8 Linear tickets assigned to you with varying priority levels
35 email threads that need a decision or response
8 Google Docs with unresolved comments
4 half-written notes in your personal task app
When I start feeling overwhelmed, it's rarely because I have too much to do—it's because my work is fragmented across too many places. I might have 4 Slack reminders set for "tomorrow" that are now overdue, 6 tasks in my to-do list with arbitrary deadlines, 11 Linear notifications I haven't checked in days, and 3 emails from my boss that I keep meaning to answer.
The problem isn't just volume—it's disorganization that makes everything feel urgent when it's not.
The Solution: Consolidate Your Digital Life
When the chaos hits, there's one approach that consistently works for me: consolidating my inboxes by pulling everything into one central place to see what work I need to do.
Here's my three-step process:
1. Triage Each Inbox Separately
Slack: Use the All Unread screen for a first pass. I'll mark "FYI" messages as read immediately, save important links to my bookmark system, and set reminders for anything that requires a response but isn't urgent.
Email: I use the "Archive/Delete/Flag" method—archive newsletters after skimming, delete truly irrelevant items, and flag anything requiring a response with a color system (red for urgent, yellow for this week).
Project tools: In Linear, I first check my assigned tickets, then notifications. I specifically look for blockers—is someone waiting on my approval or input to proceed?
Notes: I keep one central "working notes" document where I consolidate action items from meetings. Before adding new items to my task list, I review this doc.
2. Create One Giant List
After triaging, I move all action items into a single list. I use Todoist with two Settle projects: Settle + Settle Inbox. Settle tasks have hard due dates assigned to them and need to be tackled relatively quickly. The Settle inbox project is more like a “someday maybe” list where I capture ideas. (I revisit this project every Friday as part of writing my 5:15.)
For example, after processing my inboxes yesterday, I ended up with:
3 emails needing thoughtful responses
1 Linear spec ready for final review
2 design feedback requests from my team
1 presentation outline to finish
Having everything in one place means I'm not constantly context-switching between apps just to figure out what needs doing.
3. Prioritize Based on Value
Once everything's in one place, I sort by:
Quick wins (under 15 minutes): Last week, I knocked out five quick Linear reviews in one 30-minute block instead of context-switching throughout the day.
Deep work (needs focused time): I block 90-minute sessions for substantial tasks like writing a product spec or reviewing complex designs.
Follow-ups: Things I've delegated that need checking—like the user research I asked for last week or the engineering estimate I'm waiting on.
If something doesn't fit these categories, I ask: "What happens if this doesn't get done?" Last month, I dropped a low-value recurring meeting that was generating tasks nobody acted on, saving our team 4 hours monthly.
Having everything in one place means I'm not constantly context-switching between apps just to figure out what needs doing.
Why "Replying to Messages" Can Lead to Real Work
One of the biggest misconceptions is that processing messages—whether in Slack, project management tools, or email—is always just administrative overhead. But sometimes, this processing is necessary because of what it enables you to extract.
When I spend an hour going through Linear notifications, I'm not just clearing a backlog—I'm mining for:
Design review requests that, once I approve them, unblock our design team from starting implementation
Questions about feature requirements, where my 2-sentence clarification prevents a week of building the wrong thing
A bug report that reveals a critical issue affecting 15% of our users
The final PR notification on a project I'm managing, signaling it's ready to test and ship to customers
Last month, I spotted a pattern in three separate customer support threads that led us to discover an underlying issue affecting an existing workflow. This wasn't obvious in any single message, but became clear when processing multiple threads.
The value isn't in reading messages—it's in discovering what those messages help me identify as the actual work.
The Real Distinction: Extracting Work vs. Creating More Work
Here's the key difference:
Real work: When processing messages helps you identify and unblock actual tasks. For example, during my message review yesterday, I found a critical architecture question buried in a thread that, once answered, unblocked three engineers.
Work about work: When communication creates more overhead without moving anything forward. Like the 45-minute debate a friend told me her company had about which icon to use for approvals in their design system, or the fourth consecutive meeting about reorganizing your Notion workspace that results in no changes. This shit drives me bananas.
This is why consolidating inboxes is so powerful—it forces intentionality. Instead of drowning in notifications, you can extract:
What truly matters from mere noise (I ignore all "someone reacted to your message" notifications)
What needs your attention, from what can be ignored (I process all "@mentions" first, then review threads where my team is discussing our current priority project)
I've set up specific Slack channels with notification settings based on urgency. Our pod channel gives push notifications, while regular team channels don't notify me at all—I check them during scheduled times.
It's not about "inbox zero" for its own sake. It's about panning for gold—finding the meaningful tasks hidden within all the communication.
The Bottom Line: Processing Messages to Find Real Work
Yes, "work about work" is still not real work. But the messages and notifications often contain the seeds of real work that needs to be done.
The goal isn't avoiding inboxes. The goal is to process them efficiently to extract the actual, meaningful tasks hidden within.
A concrete example from my own workflow: I tackle "inbox zero" for one of my main tools each day in rotation—Slack on Mondays, Linear on Tuesdays, GitHub/Figma on Wednesdays, Notion on Thursdays, and Email on Fridays. This prevents any single inbox from ever becoming overwhelming.
Last week, during my Slack cleanup day, this focused session yielded two high-impact tasks that weren't on anyone's radar:
A customer had shared detailed feedback about an integration buried in a long support thread
An engineer needed guidance on a bug report that came in from a product perspective before they could decide on technical implementation
None of these were labeled "urgent," but all were more valuable than half the tasks already on my to-do list.
Sometimes, the act of digging through notifications isn't valuable in itself, but it's necessary to uncover the real work that matters.
If this post resonates, check out this earlier one for more examples of determining where to offload, where to gain leverage, and how to adapt a system that fits your daily life.
The Extra Point
The Extra Point is a segment where I highlight a brand or product I’ve tried recently with an honest review. We’ll try it and see if it scores…
High-protein popcorn made with real ingredients. A little expensive for popcorn, but not for a high protein snack food- bought at Target. Perfect for our first beach day of the season. I bought all three flavors, but we only opened the white cheddar. The kids devoured this, and the popcorn was much softer than the air-popped popcorn we usually make at home. I would definitely buy again.
Another great newsletter, Emilie! This is one of two newsletters I receive that I open right away. I know it's going to be a relatively quick read, jammed with great insights. Thanks for sharing!