I’ve even been explicitly coached to use this strategy as a sort of pre-triage. Because when you’re truly swamped with incoming requests even prioritizing starts to eat up a lot of time.

Me too. I used to be super dilligent about immediately responding to emails, requests, meeting invites and I never once benefited from doing so. I only trained my peers into learning that I was a "yes man" that always responded quickly, and they abused this.

Therefore, I now no longer rush at all responding to emails unless its actually urgent and concrete. If someone sends vague requests, I just don't ansewr. If they don't come back, I can infer it probably wasn't that important or they found some resolution on their own.

I also never respond to meeting invites just in case I can avoid the meeting. I think I've probably dodged 100 unnecessary meetings over the last couple of years by literally just never responding or showing up. I of course don't do this with 1-1 meetings, but meetings with: multiple people where I'm not needed, there is no listed agenda, and my involvement is not clear; F that.

I also frequently just say "no, I can't", which I didn't for most of my carreer, and just suddenly realized I could do largely without consequences or repercussions. It's fascinating.