My day starts with two emails.
One is from the Australian Taxation Office. It's kinda formal, measured. Not an obvious threat. A large PAYG instalment overdue, stated calmly, as if already agreed. The email doesn't ask me to act immediately; it does not include a login link and reads with a certain convincing gravitas. The kind of thing that exists whether I engage with it or not.
The other claims to be from
Origin Energy. Lighter tone. I have overpaid. There’s a small refund. A neat, specific amount with a link that expires in 24 hours. The email invites action. Click. Claim. Resolve. Move on. An opportunity rather than an obligation.
Different tone. Different stakes. Same problem.
Both emails ask me to do something.
The ATO email is more subtle. It doesn't push me directly, but positions itself as legitimate and procedural. The amount is large enough to matter and the language is plausible. The message creates a quiet pressure to check, to confirm, to resolve. Not urgent, but persistent.
The Origin email is more suspicious come to think about it. Reward paired with urgency. Not addressed to me by name, just like the ATO mail. There's a link that becomes the centre of my attention. One click and a small administrative correction. Something in my favour. Something easy.
Both emails rely on the same human reflex: clear the task in front of you.
Go and put the kettle on.
It sounds trivial, almost absurd as a response to a financial prompt. But it does something that advice rarely achieves. It interrupts behaviour at the point of action. Not after analysis. Not after suspicion. Before.
The kettle is not about thinking better. It is about not thinking at all. Making a brew creates a gap between stimulus and response. A small, physical ritual that breaks the flow.
Without it, the sequence is predictable. See email. Assess quickly. Act. Even when we believe we are being careful, we are still operating within the email’s frame. We are still reacting to its cues. Its urgency, its tone, its implicit authority.
The kettle allows me to step out of the moment.
Time passes. The emotional charge fades. The need to resolve the issue immediately diminishes. What remains is easier to question.
Why would the ATO communicate something important by email and not through MyGov? Why would a refund require a separate claim at all? Why the deadline? Why the link?
These are not complex questions. They do not require technical knowledge. They require distance and time.
The kettle creates that space.
It also enforces a second step, which matters more than the first. Change the channel. If something is real, it will exist independently of the email. Inside a secure account. Through a known contact. Via a route I initiate, not one presented to me.
This is where most advice fails. It tells people to inspect the email more carefully. Check the sender. Hover over links. Look for inconsistencies. That assumes time, attention, and a level of technical confidence that is often absent, particularly under cognitive load.
The kettle bypasses that entirely.
It does not ask me to become an expert in phishing detection. It asks me to follow a rule. Pause. Ignore the email. Verify elsewhere or not at all.
In the ATO example, that means logging into my account independently and checking whether the instalment exists. If it does, the email becomes redundant. If it does not, it becomes irrelevant.
In the Origin example, the same process applies. No link. No form. Either the refund is already visible in my account, or it does not exist. The email adds nothing.
What is striking is how little effort this requires. The complexity sits with the attacker, not the recipient. The kettle shifts the burden back where it belongs.
There is also a deeper point. These emails succeed not because people are careless, but because they are efficient. We are conditioned to process small tasks quickly. To trust familiar brands. To resolve minor issues without friction. The system relies on that behaviour. Scams exploit it.
The kettle introduces friction deliberately.
It is a small, repeatable act that changes the default response. Not engage. Not analyse. Pause. Then choose a safer path.
In both cases, the content of the email becomes secondary. The decision is made before the details are considered. That is the strength of the approach. It removes the need to judge each email on its merits.
The emails look different. The mechanism is the same.
Break the momentum, and the email loses its power.
Go put the kettle on.
