I stopped reading past the first line.

—Can you believe this email from Legal? It’s six paragraphs long.

—I know. What are they thinking? Send it to me.

—Already did. Give me the gist.

—Okay, getting it now… ✨… Okay. It says we have “significant exposure” and recommends “immediate mitigation.”

—Ugh, jargon. What does that mean?

—The AI suggests it’s about risk. High risk.

—Right. So what’s the action item?

—It says we need to read the full document attached. It’s a 28-page PDF.

—A what? No. Absolutely not. Ask the AI to summarize the PDF.

—Asking… ✨… It says the core message is “urgent action required to avoid severe penalties.”

—Penalties for what?

—It doesn’t specify. The summary just highlights the urgency.

—This is useless. Can you ask it to give me a one-sentence version? Just the absolute headline.

—Doing it… ✨… Okay, here it is: “The company is in serious trouble.”

—See? Was that so hard? Perfect. I can work with that. Forward that sentence to my assistant, tell her to “handle it.”

—Will do. What are you going to do?

—I’m going to my next meeting. It’s a 30-minute slot to approve the Q3 strategic plan.

—Have you… read the plan?

—I read the one-paragraph summary my AI wrote for me this morning. It said “looks good.” What more do I need?

The methadone shot

Here’s a little detox tip: for your next three meetings, ban the word “summary.” If someone presents a summary, you have to ask them one specific question about a detail they omitted. It’s a muscle; you have to retrain it. If you need more help unplugging, the folks at the Unplug Collaborative have some ideas.

Honestly, who has time for details anymore? Thank God for the little sparkle that does the reading for us. It’s the best intellectual morphine on the market.

Your turn: