A warning label becomes less useful when every surface makes the same demand for alarm.

Warnings work by contrast. One red sign in a plain corridor gets read; forty of them become wallpaper, and the dangerous one disappears into the pattern. The same is true of urgent emails, flashing badges, and anything marked important as a matter of habit. Each additional alarm spends a little of the credit the whole system depends on, and the spending is invisible until the day something is missed.

Look at whatever you send or post that carries an urgency marker, and take the marker off most of it. Save the strong signal for the few things that cannot wait, so that it still means something when you use it.