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How to ThinkIn the Age of AI

Question

What does it mean that trigger fatigue?

beginner

Quick Answer

Too many triggers overwhelm your attention — curate ruthlessly.

Example: You set up eleven daily reminders: journal, stretch, review goals, meditate, read, drink water, check calendar, clean inbox, practice a language, log food, and do a gratitude exercise. By day three you're swiping away every notification without reading it. By day seven you've turned off notifications entirely. The two triggers that actually mattered — journaling and calendar review — are now buried alongside nine that didn't. You went from a system that could have worked to a system that trained you to ignore everything.

Try this: Open your phone's notification settings right now. Count the total number of apps with notifications enabled. Then count how many you actually acted on in the last 48 hours — not glanced at, acted on. Calculate your personal signal-to-noise ratio. If fewer than 20% of your notification sources drove real action, you have trigger fatigue. Disable everything that didn't make the cut. Live with the reduced set for one week before reconsidering.

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