Sam Altman is unhappy with his email-reading habit, calls it psychologically inconsistent and …

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says he has access to AI tools that could help him deal with routine work, but he still finds himself going through emails manually. Speaking on David Senra’s podcast, Sam Altman said his habit of scrolling through his inbox and deciding which email to open is difficult to explain, especially when AI tools could handle some of that work. He said his work style doesn’t always match what he believes is the most productive use of his time, calling the habit “psychologically inconsistent.”

Sam Altman says manually reading emails feels like work

During the podcast, Sam Altman said he still defaults to handling emails himself, even with tools such as OpenAI’s Codex available to help with tasks on a computer. “I should not be scrolling mindlessly through my emails and trying to figure out which one is least painful for me to open and respond when I don’t want to be dealing with it,” Altman said.Instead, he said, AI could handle more routine tasks, including moving information between apps and working through items on his to-do list.For those unaware, Codex is OpenAI’s software engineering agent and coding assistant that can perform tasks on a computer, with a focus on helping programmers write, review and test software.However, changing old work habits is not as simple as having access to new technology, Altman said. “And yet there’s something in my mind that is encoded that doing this kind of stuff is what it means to work and what it means to be productive,” he said.

Why Sam Altman finds his own work habit difficult to explain

Sam Altman said he does not actually enjoy working through his inbox this way, making the habit even harder for him to understand. “If you asked me, I would never say I like doing it that way,” he added. “It makes no sense other than I must secretly like it or feel good about it.”Altman described the habit as psychologically inconsistent and suggested that better AI products could make it easier for people to move away from familiar ways of working.Notably, Altman is not alone in trying to prevent email from taking over the workday. A recent Business Insider analysis of 100 “Power Hours” interviews found that many leaders set priorities before opening their inboxes, check messages during specific time blocks, keep replies short and automate or delegate parts of the process.Some executives have already turned to AI and automation. Klaviyo CEO Andrew Bialecki said in a March interview that he had built scripts to send him a summary of important information from the previous 24 hours.Siemens CEO Roland Busch, meanwhile, said he receives around 200 emails a day but tries to keep his inbox below 100. He said many of his replies are simply “OK” or “no,” while he sometimes dictates longer responses while walking through the office.