When I process my email inbox, I want to quickly assess which emails to delete immediately, file for future reference, answer someday, answer soon, or answer now. Suffice it to say that I don’t want to track significant work in email I want to see it in Todoist or, in some cases, directly on my calendar. Yes, perhaps I should not be so weak-minded, but managing one’s work well involves creating systems to tolerate one’s weakness, rather than work against them. When I open email to look for work to do, I become easily distracted by the new email to process, so I end up doing that instead.I really hate looking in multiple places to remind myself what I should be doing next.I sometimes don’t open email for several weeks.I know that some of you use email to manage your tasks, and that doesn’t work for me, for a few reasons.

I strongly prefer to track work in one place, and I’ve chosen Todoist for that. You might call them “projects” or “next actions” or “to do”s, but I try to call it simply “work”, if for no other reason than to make it easier to talk about.

Todoist gmail