Using AI to write work emails can help you stop people-pleasing, set clear boundaries, and save emotional energy while staying professional and effective at work.

You know that Outlook notification sound? The one that makes your stomach drop? The one you hear in your nightmares?

I got one of those emails once. My boss forwarded something from their boss saying we needed these specific numbers and we needed them yesterday. No context. No explanation of why or how they’d be used or what data actually mattered. Just panic mode activated.

So I did what any good people-pleasing employee does – I spent three hours building the most perfect report you’ve ever seen. Every number verified. Every format pristine. Every detail anticipated. I had scenarios prepared in my head for every possible question because asking for clarification would mean I didn’t already know, and that would be weakness, right?

At the meeting I was SO ready. Ready to defend my work, explain my methodology, expand on any point they wanted.

My boss’s boss didn’t even look at it.

Not once. Not even a glance.

Turns out I’d just responded to a panic chain. My boss panicked when their boss asked, so they panicked me, and I panicked myself into three hours of work that literally no one needed or wanted. We were all just playing a game of telephone with anxiety.

That moment made something click that I’d been learning slowly over 15 years in workforce development: most of the energy we waste at work isn’t even on actual work. It’s performing for people whose opinions don’t matter to our careers or our paychecks or our growth. And it’s worrying about things we don’t need to worry about because one simple clarifying question would have solved everything.

Here’s where this gets interesting – AI can actually help you stop doing that.

The People-Pleasing Tax

For 11 years I worked at a community action agency and I was constantly performing. Not for my supervisor necessarily, but for everyone. Coworkers in other departments. People who had zero say in my career. People who were going to have opinions about me no matter what I did.

I agonized over every email, every interaction, every encounter. What I didn’t realize is that they weren’t obsessing over me at all. Because I’m not that important and that is extremely freeing once you accept it.

There was this guy at a leadership program I attended – BRIGHT Leadership, the one my employer made me take vacation time for even though it was supposed to be professional development. Anyway, this random guy. Never met him before the program. Never spoke to him during the program. At some point he decided to tell me I needed to work on my accent and communication because “no offense, but you sound unprofessional.”

I was crushed. Like genuinely crushed. I didn’t say anything, just let it eat at me.

Now? Looking back? That guy didn’t sign my paycheck. He wasn’t hiring me. He wasn’t evaluating my performance. He was literally just some dude with an opinion and the audacity to share it. And the irony? He had the exact same accent I have, he just couldn’t hear it on himself.

But when you’re a chronic people-pleaser, you spend emotional energy on everyone’s opinion equally. The person who controls your raise gets the same mental real estate as the random conference guy who felt like sharing unsolicited feedback. That’s exhausting and completely unsustainable.

It’s Really Not About You (And That’s Actually Great News)

I have a philosophy now that’s honestly changed my entire work life: it’s not you, it’s really not about you, so stop caring.

Every workplace has genuinely unpleasant people. The passive-aggressive emailers. The people who make snide comments. The ones who seem to have made it their personal mission to make you feel small.

After quitting three jobs in a row and completely imploding my life (whole other article on that), I learned something crucial: most of the time it genuinely isn’t about you. They’re just unpleasant. That’s their personality. It’s not a targeted attack on your competence or worth.

Once I accepted that, I adjusted my expectations but not my approach. I’m still kind. I’m still professional. But I stopped trying to win over people who were never going to be won over. I stopped wasting energy trying to prove my productivity to coworkers who literally weren’t evaluating my performance.

Strategic disengagement isn’t about being rude or checked out. It’s recognizing where your energy actually creates value and stopping the leak everywhere else.

Think about it this way; are you a bad person? Do you go home at night and plot ways to make your coworkers’ lives miserable? Do you spend your free time thinking of passive-aggressive comments to make tomorrow? No? Well guess what, other people don’t either. Most people at least. (Okay there are a few genuinely crazy people out there but they’re rare.)

People are dealing with their own stuff outside of work. Their kid’s sick. Their car broke down. They’re going through a divorce. Their mom has cancer. They’re stressed about money. And that stress leaks into how they interact at work, but it has nothing to do with you personally.

How AI Became My Emotional Energy Conservation Tool

So what does AI have to do with any of this? Everything actually.

I realized that a huge chunk of my people-pleasing energy was going into communications. Emails I’d rewrite five times to make sure they didn’t offend anyone. Responses to passive-aggressive messages where I’d spend 30 minutes crafting the perfect professional-but-firm reply. Follow-up emails to people who ignored me the first three times.

Energy vampires, all of them. And they weren’t even important work …just the tax I was paying to exist in a workplace with difficult personalities.

That’s when AI clicked for me. I’ve been using ChatGPT for about three years, started using Claude maybe three months ago. Everyone talks about using AI for productivity but I think the real superpower is emotional energy conservation.

The Email Template Strategy That Changed Everything

I started identifying the emails that drained me. The ones I got constantly that needed roughly the same response but I’d been writing from scratch every time because I was worried about tone or perception or coming across the “right” way.

Like:

• • The “just following up” email when someone’s ignoring me
  • The “I need this from you by this date” email that has to be firm without being aggressive
  • The “actually that’s not my responsibility” boundary-setting masterpiece
  • The “thank you but no” to requests that aren’t my job

So I started building an email template repository using AI. The key is giving it so much context that the output is already 80% there.

My prompt structure:

I need to draft an email to [person/role]. Context: [what’s happening, what they already know, what I actually need]. Audience: [their role, their likely perspective]. Tone: [professional but firm, warm but clear, whatever]. Format: Put the ask at the top and highlight it, then supporting context in bullet points below.

Garbage in, garbage out – that’s my philosophy with AI and it applies perfectly here. The more context you give it, the better it works.

What This Actually Looks Like

Real example: I used to get requests constantly from people asking me to do things that weren’t in my job description. Classic scope creep. I would agonize over how to say no without seeming unhelpful or difficult or like I wasn’t a team player.

Now I have a template for that. AI helped me draft a version that’s warm and clear and redirects them to the right person, and I don’t lose sleep over whether I worded it perfectly.

Once you have the template you just customize it slightly each time. Takes 30 seconds instead of 30 minutes of emotional labor.

And here’s what nobody tells you – that saved emotional energy compounds. When you’re not depleted from drafting the perfect email to someone who doesn’t even sign your paycheck, you have more energy for work that actually matters. For people who actually matter. For yourself.

The Reality Check on AI (Because It’s Not Perfect)

I need to be really clear about something: AI is not perfect. It’s a language model programmed for user satisfaction, which means it will confidently give you completely wrong information if you don’t fact-check it.

I learned this the hard way working on workforce projects related to specific regulations. I used AI-generated content that cited older sources and the regulations had been updated recently. I didn’t check. That was completely on me.

My fact-checking routine now:

1. Ask AI to cite sources
2. Actually click through and verify those sources exist and are current
3. Pay attention to dates – if something could have been updated, Google it separately
4. For anything regulatory, legal, or compliance-related, I specifically prompt: “Search for the most recent version and note if there’s a possibility this has been updated”

You are the protector of accuracy. AI is a tool, not a replacement for your judgment and definitely not a replacement for your responsibility.

What My Coworkers Get Wrong About AI

Most of my peers are terrified of AI. They think it’s going to replace them or they don’t understand it or they think it’s a trend that’ll fade out.

What I tell them: AI isn’t going to replace workers. It’s going to replace workers who refuse to incorporate it into their work because they’re afraid of it.

The internet wasn’t a trend. Social media wasn’t a trend. AI isn’t going away.

But here’s the other thing they get completely wrong – they don’t edit AI output.

People will straight up copy-paste a ChatGPT response into an email and hit send. Then they’re shocked when it sounds robotic or there’s an error or it just doesn’t land right.

If you’re directly copying and pasting AI output without editing and refining it yourself, you’re doing it wrong. Even if the output seems perfect, you have a responsibility as the creator to check it. That’s your role.

AI gives you a strong first draft. Your job is to make it yours.

Who Actually Signs Your Paycheck (The Metaphorical Version)

I have a framework now for deciding where my energy goes.

People who “sign my paycheck” metaphorically:

• My direct supervisor

• People who evaluate my performance or control my advancement

• Clients or stakeholders whose satisfaction directly impacts my role

• Collaborators on projects where my reputation is actually on the line

People who don’t:

• Coworkers who like to comment on what I’m working on

• People who make passive-aggressive remarks about productivity

• Random people at conferences or networking events with unsolicited feedback

• Anyone who starts a sentence with “no offense, but…”

Once I made this distinction crystal clear in my head, everything changed. I’m still kind to everyone. I still do good work. But I stopped auditioning for approval from that second category.

AI helps me maintain that boundary by efficiently handling the low-stakes, high-drain communications.

The Real Productivity Hack Nobody Talks About

Everyone talks about AI as a productivity tool and sure, it is. I’ve automated workflows in Power Automate. Used it to troubleshoot VBA and Apps Script code. Streamlined processes for sending personalized onboarding emails through Outlook using Excel data. I’ve saved literal hours.

But the real productivity hack isn’t time saved. It’s energy saved.

When you stop hemorrhaging emotional energy on communications that don’t actually matter, on opinions that don’t impact your career, on people who don’t sign your paycheck – you get that energy back. You can invest it in work that moves the needle. In relationships that matter. In yourself.

AI doesn’t do this for you automatically. But it can be a tool that makes it way easier to establish and maintain those boundaries.

Just Start Somewhere Simple

If you’re reading this thinking “I don’t even know where to start with AI,” here’s my advice:

Don’t even create an account yet. Just open ChatGPT or Claude and ask it to help with something simple. Maybe not even work-related at first. Ask it to draft one of those energy-draining emails you get constantly and need to respond to.

Give it context. Tell it who you’re emailing, what you need, what tone you’re going for. See what it gives you back. Then edit it. Make it yours.

Save that edited version as a template.

Do that five times and you’ll have a repository of responses that save you hours of emotional labor every single week.

And maybe you’ll start to see where else in your work you’re spending energy on people who don’t actually matter to your career, your growth, or your peace of mind.

After 15 years in workforce development, three job quits in a row, and a complete life implosion, I learned this: your worth doesn’t revolve around your output. And definitely not around your output for people who don’t sign your paycheck.

Strategic disengagement isn’t about caring less about your work. It’s about caring more strategically about where your energy goes.

Sometimes AI can help you get there. But the real work is recognizing that most of what you’re stressing about probably doesn’t matter nearly as much as you think it does.

Visit my Resource page for more helpful tips and tricks.