Email Mess to Email Freedom in 17 minutes

Let’s talk about email.

That digital junk drawer you swear you’ll organise one day.

Except “one day” keeps not arriving, and you’re drowning in a sea of bold subject lines, flagged chaos, and unread newsletters you never asked for.

Here’s the truth: it’s not your fault.

We were never taught how to manage email - we were just handed the inbox and told “Good luck.”

But recently I came across this absolute weapon of a system by Tiago Forte (productivity genius + author of Building a Second Brain), and it completely flipped how I think about email.

He spends just 17 minutes a day on email. And no, that’s not a typo.

The method?

It’s called One-Touch Inbox Zero - and I’m obsessed.

What is One-Touch Inbox Zero?

It’s exactly what it sounds like:

You touch each email once.

You don’t reply later. You don’t leave it sitting there. You don’t flag it for “next week.”

You touch it.

You decide what needs doing.

You send it to the right place.

Then you archive it. It’s gone. Out of your inbox. Out of your brain.

But First - Strip Email Back to What It’s Actually For

The biggest issue with email? We’re trying to make it do too much.

It’s become our to-do list, our calendar, our file storage, our note-taking app, our messenger, our project manager.

Tiago puts it brilliantly: email is the Frankenstein of productivity tools.

But it was only ever meant to do one thing: collect new inputs.

So instead of trying to do everything in email, we build a little ecosystem around it.

Here’s how it works.

The Four Downstream Tools You Need:

If you’re going to touch an email once, you need somewhere smart to send it.

Here are the four apps Tiago recommends (and I now use versions of myself):

1. 📅 Calendar (for time-based tasks)

If the email is about something with a date/time - a meeting, a deadline, a launch - chuck it in your calendar.

Tool: Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, or whatever’s already on your phone.

Sync across all your devices. Done.

Hot tip I use Fantastical - any meeting email i get I forward it straight to a personal app email that associates with your account. And just like that your meeting is scheduled in your calendar. And as soon as I say “Hey Siri” with me next reminder, its added into a to-do straight into the calendar.

2. ✅ Task Manager (for things that need doing)

If the email requires an action - reply, write, follow up, call - send it to your task manager.

Recommended apps:

– Things (Mac + iOS only, slick AF)

– Todoist (cross-platform and super simple)

• Fantastical - todos/reminders and meetings all in one

All of them let you link directly to the original email so you can come back to it when you’re ready to do the task - not while you’re processing email.

3. 📚 Reference App (for things you want to keep)

If it’s something you might need later but don’t need to act on - save it to your reference library.

Tool:

– Evernote (super easy, has a unique email address you can forward things to)

– Or Notion, OneNote, even Google Drive if you’re already in that ecosystem.

Forward the email to the app. Archive the original. Boom.

4. 👀 Read Later App (for stuff you want to check out soon-ish)

Interesting newsletter? Long blog post? PDF you’ll probably never read but feel guilty deleting?

Don’t leave it in your inbox.

Send it to a read-later app and decide later if it's worth your time.

Tool:

– Instapaper or Pocket

Both give you a unique email address you can forward stuff to, and boom - it’s in your mobile “magazine rack” for later.

Bonus: The Gmail Settings That Make This Whole Thing Work

You didn’t think we’d stop at apps, did you?

Now we optimise Gmail so you can fly through this workflow.

Here’s what to tweak:

1. Turn on auto-advance

This makes Gmail open the next email after you archive - instead of kicking you back to your inbox. No distractions.

Settings → Advanced → Enable Auto-advance

2. Turn on keyboard shortcuts

You’ll be flying through emails with a few taps.

– e to archive

– r to reply

– c to compose

– f to forward

Settings → General → Enable keyboard shortcuts

3. Turn off notifications

You don’t need your email interrupting you every 5 minutes. It’s not the boss of you.

Settings → General → Set notifications to “off”

4. Shut off chat and social integrations

Email is email. Chat is chat. Don’t let it all bleed together.

The Real Magic: Triaging Like a Surgeon

Once the system is in place, here’s what you do:

1. Open the oldest email.

2. Decide what needs to happen.

3. Take one of these actions:

   – Add to calendar

   – Create a task

   – Save to reference

   – Send to read-later

   – Reply (if it’ll take under 2 mins)

   – Archive (if no action is needed)

4. Move on to the next.

That’s it. No bouncing back and forth. No re-reading the same email 5 times.

You’re sorting. Not reacting. You’re the one in control now.

TL;DR?

🧠 Email is for inputs, not for doing the work

⚙️ Set up 4 tools: calendar, task manager, reference app, read-later app

✋ Touch each email ONCE.

📤 Archive immediately after action

💻 Tweak Gmail to work FOR you, not against you

⏰ Do this every 1–2 days. Total time? Around 15–20 mins.

This system isn’t mine - credit to the legend Tiago Forte - but it’s changed how I work, and I had to pass it on.

Because life’s too short to live inside your inbox.