I have one definitive inbox. Each morning, I go through the other inboxes (email, Slack, texts, etc.). I do the tasks I can do immediately, like replying to an email asking a question I know the answer to. The ones I can’t, I copy into my main inbox.
oncretely, I use Things for my to-do lists, and can easily drag an email into it (or use its Mac hotkeys) to make a Things inbox item like “Reply to Joe about the Foo project”. Once everything’s in Things, I schedule them where appropriate, or move them into projects like “Work > Icebox” to come back to later.
The core principle is that I have one place to look to know what I need to do. This works for me. The other option of having multiple active inboxes fills me with dread and I can’t operate efficiently like that.
oncretely, I use Things for my to-do lists, and can easily drag an email into it (or use its Mac hotkeys) to make a Things inbox item like “Reply to Joe about the Foo project”. Once everything’s in Things, I schedule them where appropriate, or move them into projects like “Work > Icebox” to come back to later.
The core principle is that I have one place to look to know what I need to do. This works for me. The other option of having multiple active inboxes fills me with dread and I can’t operate efficiently like that.