OG Tuesday Issue #290

🧑‍💻 Turns out keeping a remote team connected doesn’t have to be awkward.

🎨 Your nervous system is begging you to just play for once.

🧠 62% of us deal with imposter syndrome, and these mindset shifts actually help.

💬 Shifting from “I” to “we” sounds small until you see what it does for trust.

If you’ve spent any time with AI tools over the past year, you’ve probably noticed something frustrating: you’re faster at individual tasks, but your overall workload hasn’t really changed.

The emails still pile up. The recurring reports still land on your desk. The weekly prep still takes the same amount of time it always did.

The way most people use AI is what’s keeping their workload exactly where it was. Most people bring AI in task by task. They have something to write, they open ChatGPT, they get a draft.

Useful, but they’re still the one driving every single time. The moment they close the tab, the process ends. AI helped, but nothing was handed off.

The shift that actually changes your workload is moving from chatting with AI to delegating to it, and the difference comes down to one thing: how clearly you’ve written down the work.

Think about the recurring tasks that live on your plate every week. The ones you could describe step-by-step if you had to. The ones that have a pattern, even if they don’t feel like it.

Now ask yourself: have you ever written one of those down clearly enough that someone brand new could follow it without asking you a single question?

Most people haven’t, and that’s exactly why AI keeps assisting instead of owning. When you capture not just the steps but the context like what good looks like, what to do when something’s off, and what decisions need to be made along the way, you’ve built something AI can actually run. On repeat, every time that task comes up, without you in the loop.

Rachel Woods calls this a playbook. The reason it works is simple: AI doesn’t need you to be brilliant. It needs you to be clear.

Start with one process this week. Something you do every single week. Write it out like you’re handing it off to someone who’s never done it before. Then give it to AI and see what it can do with it.

That’s the starting point, and it’s exactly why we’re bringing Rachel in this Thursday to go deeper.

She’s spent two years building and teaching this method, and we wanted our community to get it straight from her.

If this resonated, the live session on April 16th is where she walks you through the full Playbook Method, start to finish, with real demos and time for questions. Free, one hour, and worth it.

Grab your spot here.

If you’re the one responsible for assigning compliance training, you know the feeling: roll it out, track completion, file the report. The coverage question gets answered. Whether anyone walks away better equipped to handle a real situation is a harder question.

Traliant’s 2026 Preventing Workplace Harassment is built to answer the harder one. A cinematic, TV-style connected storyline with real-time decision points and game-show-style challenges puts learners inside the gray areas most training only describes; and new content drops every year, so your team is never sitting through a rerun.

Continuously updated for DOJ and EEOC guidance, 50-state compliant, with built-in Behavioral Analytics that measure actual shifts in awareness and confidence, not just who clicked submit.

👉 Preview the 2026 course free.

We get some version of this challenge almost every time we open up the floor, and Vicki S. said it best: “Getting people to respond to my emails.”

If your emails are going unanswered, the first thing to know is this: it is not always about you. Inboxes are chaotic, people are overwhelmed, and sometimes great emails just get lost in the shuffle.

But there are things within your control that can make a real difference.

First, do a quick gut check

Ask yourself a few honest questions before blaming the inbox:

• Are you asking for something that is not yours to ask for?
• Is the request unclear?
• Are you emailing someone every other day and slowly becoming their most dreaded notification?
• Is there a chance the lack of response is actually pushback?

Be honest. The answer can tell you if your approach is the culprit or if it’s something else.

It might not be you at all

Sometimes low response rates are an organizational problem, not a people problem. If a company runs on email, Slack, Teams, text, and three other platforms simultaneously, people are drowning. Emails are not being ignored on purpose; they’re just buried under forty others.

It’s also worth considering whether there’s a relationship deficit with the people on the receiving end. If the only time someone shows up in a colleague’s inbox is when they need something, they are going to get deprioritized (consciously or not).

So build relationships before you need them. Check in occasionally. Engage with their work. Be a person, not just a requestor.

Write emails people actually want to respond to

This is the most fixable piece of the puzzle. Most unanswered emails suffer from the same issues: they’re too long, too vague, or bury the ask somewhere in paragraph four.

Here is what to do instead:

• Lead with the ask. Do not make people read to the bottom to figure out what is needed.
• Make it scannable. Use short paragraphs, bullet points, and bold text to highlight the key request and any deadline.
• Be specific about urgency. “When you get a chance” gets deprioritized. “I need this by Thursday at noon to hit our deadline” gets answered.
• Keep it short. If the email requires scrolling, it is probably too long.

Good rule of thumb: if someone can read it in under 30 seconds and know exactly what’s needed and when, it’s a good email.

Do not be afraid to follow up or switch channels

One follow-up isn’t annoying. It’s professional. Give it two to three business days and then try again, but consider changing the medium. Pick up the phone. Send a Slack message. If the team is in the office, walk over to someone’s desk.

A 30-second in-person conversation can accomplish what three emails could not.

When nothing is working, zoom out

The issue might not be the emails at all. It could be a credibility gap, an unclear ask, or a company culture with too many communication channels and not enough signal. Identifying the real bottleneck is the only way to actually solve it.

If you’re like me and always on the hunt for ways to get smarter — whether that’s leadership, strategy, productivity, or just the books everyone’s been talking about — I highly recommend checking out Shortform.

With my schedule getting busier every quarter, it’s become my go-to for getting the knowledge from books I’d never get to otherwise.

You get over 10,000 books with actionable summaries, full chapter breakdowns, analysis, and real context that makes ideas actually stick.

I especially appreciate the audio versions and thousands of podcasts so I can fit it into my walks with my dog, commutes, or whatever spare minutes I can find.

If you’re serious about learning more this year, give it a try.

TA readers can try it for free and get $25 off the annual plan.

👉 Try it free and get $25 off

Joanna (TA Co-Founder)

📆 Join this free 4/23 workshop with hands-on training designed to help you think like a Head of AI. RSVP Now.

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🍪 No more guessing: this rolling pin with built-in measurements gives you perfectly even dough every single time.

🖊️ Why not make note-taking more fun with these gel pens?

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 Work Wisdom of the Week: “In the following weeks after you get laid off, apply for unemployment insurance ASAP. Establish a routine so you have something to look forward to i.e. go to the gym, get a hobby, and re-evaluate what you are looking for in your next chapter. Layoffs suck, but it’s also a window of opportunity to push a reset button on your life.”

Maribell P. (Freelance Consultant)

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Twice a year, we stop guessing and just ask. And this is that week. Our 2026 Subscriber Survey is live now through Friday, April 17th, and your answers are what actually shape what we build next. It takes about 10 minutes and every response genuinely counts. Take the survey here.

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