What I’ve usually done in such situations is to reply to the last message and say something like “I’m not planning to continue this discussion; please feel free to have the last word. If there’s something further that you particularly want a response to, say so and I’ll respond, but then that’s it.”
I think “at most two more replies” is probably better, not least because you can say it more briefly.
Me too: I’ve never tried pre-announcing my done-ness, or trying to ramp down that slowly. But I can imagine it’s more effective than my normal mechanism of being clear in my last response that I’m unlikely to participate further.
I do think that the internal commitment to stop engaging and the external announcement that you’re in exit mode are both very important, and the specific form of them probably less so.
What I’ve usually done in such situations is to reply to the last message and say something like “I’m not planning to continue this discussion; please feel free to have the last word. If there’s something further that you particularly want a response to, say so and I’ll respond, but then that’s it.”
I think “at most two more replies” is probably better, not least because you can say it more briefly.
Me too: I’ve never tried pre-announcing my done-ness, or trying to ramp down that slowly. But I can imagine it’s more effective than my normal mechanism of being clear in my last response that I’m unlikely to participate further.
I do think that the internal commitment to stop engaging and the external announcement that you’re in exit mode are both very important, and the specific form of them probably less so.