Those who knew me growing up might be shocked by this, but I hate clutter. If I have a lot of stuff around me, I can’t focus.

The same thing goes for my digital space. Too many notifications, badges, and messages gives me agita; so I try to keep my devices clean. I have no badges turned on except missed calls and overdue tasks. Very few apps have notifications.

I have a focus mode where only my wife can send notifications to my phone.

And I keep my email at near inbox zero at all times…without AI summaries.

Here’s how.

It’s All About Having a Process

I’ve written a few times about managing my inbox. Ultimately, keeping your inbox at inbox zero will be about you and the process you have in place. These are simply the tools that work best for me.

I’m Trying Spark Again

I, like most people, have gone on a long sojourn to find the right email app. For two years, I’ve been using Mimestream on Desktop and Apple Mail on iOS.

But ultimately I keep finding my way back to Spark. It’s pretty, it works super well (especially with Google email services), and it’s cross platform. I’m using it again as of a few days ago.

It’s got great integrations with Bear Notes and Todoist, and the native email templates are better than most other tools I’ve used.

But the fact that I seamlessly change email apps proves that the app is just a small part of the battle.

SaneBox is Incredibly Important

I’ve written about SaneBox in the past, but I can’t stress enough how important this is to my workflow.

SaneBox automatically sorts my email so only the most important messages hit my inbox. It learns based on my usage, and I can create my own folders. For example, I have one called @SaneMoney for all online orders and one called @SaneCalendar for all calendar invites.

SaneBox also allows for reminders. You forward email to number.time-period@sanebox.com. So for example if I wanted an email to come back to my inbox in 5 weeks, I’d forward it to 5.weeks@sanebox.com.

Finally, you can completely pause your inbox, meaning SaneBox will make sure you don’t see _any_ email for the determined amount of time.

Feedly for Newsletters

Part of keeping my inbox tidy is making sure the newsletters don’t clutter it up.

For a while, I was using a service-based email address to send my newsletters to. But one big problem when you use a service like that is the emails don’t go to your inbox at all.

So if you need to authenticate with Substack, you have to go to your feed reader.

Plus, you can’t respond to any emails you have sent there.

If you change services, you have to painstakingly go to every newsletter you’re subscribed to and update it.

So instead, I subscribe to all of my newsletters using my Gmail address with the +nl modifier.

Then, Sanebox knows not only to filter them to a new folder — @SaneNewsletters — but it also forwards those newsletters to Feedly.

If I ever decide to move away from Feedly (to something like Feedbin), I only need to change the email address in one place: SaneBox.

Todoist for Tasks

Another reason I keep going to Spark is the great integration with other apps, including a wide range of task managers. Naturally, Todoist is on this list.

In Spark, I can swipe to the right to have email added to my task list. This can either be the full text of the email, or a smart link to the email in Spark.

This allows me to process even emails that need my response, and puts them in one of the few places where I allow notifications (more on that in a second).

Fast Processing

Another key to a tidy inbox is being able to process it quickly. With the tools above, I’ve done everything I can to make sure only emails I need to respond to hit my inbox. From there, I can process it quickly in a two ways:

1. Spark supports customizable swiping actions, so I have archive, reply, snooze, and add to Todoist
2. My most common replies can be fully typed with just a few keystrokes using Spark’s built-in templates.
   

Smart Folders and NO Email Notifications

The last thing I want to mention is that I have no email notifications turned on with any of my devices. While that prevents interrupting me in real time, I still have a small compulsion to check my email every so often. That’s a different habit I need to break, but in the meantime I have a smart folder in Spark called “Unread.” It shows me only unread emails from specific folders, and I hide everything else besides my inbox.

That means I see only the emails I want to see.

How are You Managing Your Inbox?

So there you have it — everything I’m doing to manage my inbox. No AI summaries or LLMs required; just some smart filtering and fast processing.

As I write this, I’m at inbox zero, and have been for most of the day.

While that’s not necessarily a badge of honor for people (and it shouldn’t have to be), it’s proof that my process works…which is the important part.

How are you managing your inbox? Any tips you want to share? Let me know in the comments!