Every one of the pings, dings and clicks on this page gives me the hives. Run them in a quick sequence and I need to leave the room. They are our Pavlovian bells, designed to trigger us into action.

At the bottom right is a button that says ‘stop all.’

That’s a useful idea.

We didn’t sign up for this all at once. We were seduced into becoming trained seals gradually, fish by fish.

Important work might not be quick or automatic or easy.