Shallow work expands until it consumes everything you don’t defend. Email, meetings, and quick administrative tasks multiply because they are easy to add and hard to notice as a total.
The rule is to cap them aggressively so depth has room to exist. Use time as the constraint: plan the day, block deep sessions first, and force shallow tasks to fit the remaining space. When the container is fixed, you start asking better questions about what deserves a slot.
Make the cost of “just a meeting” visible by asking what it replaces. Redesign communication to reduce endless back-and-forth: clearer messages, fewer open loops, and a willingness to be slightly less available.
This isn’t antisocial. It’s honest accounting. If your role truly requires shallow work, quantify it. If it doesn’t, stop donating hours to low-value obligations and call that productivity.