It's impossible to not have high WIP and longer lead times in async work

In async work, if you stop working on your thing to respond to another thing, you get interruption, longer lead time for your thing, and higher WIP. If you mute notifications you get longer wait times and high WIP for the other thing.

In sync work (working together on the same thing at the same time) you get no interruptions, keep WIP low and have minimal lead times.

It’s impossible to not have high WIP and longer lead times in async work.