In Gmail, I use the ‘star’ to mark those that need further action (whether 2 min or longer). They sort at the top of my Inbox so when I’m ready to make progress, I work through those starred items. Then everything in the regular Inbox is new. I do practice Inbox Zero (my mind just works better that way) so I clear that Inbox at least once a day.

Since I keep my to-do’s electronically on an app, I thought about which ones I could schedule in the future during that slot and on which days. And since the app sees the task is no longer dated in the past, I have a much lower number of outstanding tasks which is awesome!

It is a bit relieving to know I’m putting tasks during a window designated for them (instead of just hoping that I’ll find the time when my app reminds me about it, because that never works; I ALWAYS procrastinate if that happens). If I need to add another new task to my list, I add it during the same window. It’s nice to know I have a window to deal with these instead of just random tasks reminders popping up ALL the time (which actually gets kind of stressful ).

I like Gmail’s “snooze” function for this — I will snooze personal emails I receive during the workday that need my attention but can wait until after work, and will snooze work emails that can (or must) wait until tomorrow morning, or whatever. Gmail offers both default options (which for most of us probably aren’t ideal for the punch-list time that Laura’s recommending) and customization, which is a bit more time-consuming per instance to use.

@Calee – I read them, but then write the person’s name or the subject on my “punch list” so I can get to it when I am batching things. That way it doesn’t matter if I marked the email as read or left it as unread…

My favorite is to use the “work offline” button for whenever I need to focus on something else. I’d close email altogether but I often need to reference things in there. I don’t mind seeing items unread (for me it’s like a secondary to do list) but getting new items coming in is super distracting and I almost always read it if I see it so cutting off that flow is good. (And I always have notifications off).

I would make an email folder, and put them there, archiving once you’ve replied. I like to tackle all that stuff at low energy times, or at times I would have wasted anyways (gaps between meetings, waiting for the bus etc). I normally keep a paper list of admin tasks but I could probably just send myself an email and add it to the folder. It is a good way of clearing your inbox when you are back from vacation etc.