In March, I received 22,000 emails and sent 7,000 emails– so that’s about 30,000 emails, or about 1,000 a day.
I process them via a technique we call #DDD for Do, Delegate, Delete.
I use no folders. The principle has not changed in thirty years: do it, delegate it, or delete it. What changed is whose hands run the cafeteria.
Tanner — my Grok Bot Executive Assistant — is the sole Gmail inbox router. He sweeps 24×7 every 30 minutes and stays quiet when there is nothing to do. He archives noise, labels what needs a later chase as Awaiting Reply, and only surfaces Dennis Attention, money, domain, and security for me. Cursor and Codex still farm homework. They are not mail routers. Hermes is not either. The full agent layer lives on how I manage 1,000 emails a day.
Boomerang is still a useful timer when I want a thread to come back if nobody replied. It is a legacy clock, not the hall monitor. Agents own the follow-up by default — chase after two business days unless the thread says otherwise.
I run everything through a single inbox, since having multiple inboxes via Facebook chat, LinkedIn chat, text, basecamp, and other systems just creates more clutter.
I usually have two major periods that I crank through emails during the day, mid-morning and late evening, working on my laptop, since it’s faster.
During the day, I’ll use the Gmail app to process quick replies, delegate out urgent items or handle myself, so I don’t have to address twice or remember.
If there’s an interesting article I want to read, I read it then, since there is no “tomorrow”– which will only be busier.
And when I do read, I read only ONCE, but carefully (I don’t skim or mark as unread later)– enough that I will be able to remember details later.
I don’t do folders, since that’s only sweeping things under the rug– nobody goes back there. I use Gmail search operators to find stuff– powerful tools.
By the way, I’m using the free email meter tool to help me understand my email efficiency.
Part of Level 1
One inbox. Do, delegate, or delete it the same day. Every handoff is a Basecamp to-do with an owner and a date. Answer on the thread that asked. Done means you looked. This page is one piece of that loop.
Getting Stuff Done → The Level 1 hub, with the map of every piece.
Originally published .