An overflowing inbox can undermine productivity and create avoidable anxiety. Inbox Zero offers a different experience: checking email without confronting a backlog of unresolved conversations.
With the average person receiving 92 business emails a day, separating messages from outstanding work can reduce repeated distractions. A routine used by many people at Todoist has two parts.
A daily routine for clearing email
Handle quick replies immediately. Follow the 2 minute rule: if answering takes less than 2 minutes, send the response now, then archive the message.
Turn longer follow-ups into Todoist tasks. Forward messages that need a considered response or another action first. In Todoist, assign a due date and prioritize them alongside your other work, then archive the emails. Todoist can remind you when it is time to follow up.
This keeps your inbox from doubling as a task list while preserving the work each message requires.
Other ways to organize email in Todoist
Collect business expenses. Forward receipts and apply @expenses to find them when preparing month-end expense reports. Alternatively, forward them as comments on a monthly recurring “expenses” task.
Remember important relationships. For coworkers, sales leads, or students’ parents, create a project such as “Leads” or “Networking”, forward the relevant emails, and set response due dates.
Coordinate lead and client follow-ups. Send emails to a shared project so teammates can discuss details in comments, add due dates, and assign responsibility.
Save recommendations. Forward suggestions for books, articles, videos, and podcasts to a “Reading list” project for later.
Keep event details accessible. Forward appointment and event confirmations, then set their due dates and times. When needed, open the information from the task rather than searching email—particularly useful for tickets and invitations.
Choose how to add emails
Use a Todoist email extension with Gmail, Outlook, or another supported email client. Alternatively, forwarding is available with Todoist Premium for other clients, or when you want messages saved as task or project comments rather than standalone tasks.
1. Add tasks through a Todoist email extension
Email plugins let you turn a message into a task with a button inside your email client. The task automatically links back to the message, making it easier to return when you are ready to respond. Install the appropriate plugin and follow its setup instructions:
Set up Todoist for Gmail
Set up Todoist for Outlook
Set up Todoist Airmail
Connect Todoist with Newton
Connect Todoist with Mailplane
Connect Todoist with Mailbird
In Gmail, this lets you create tasks without leaving your inbox. To group work that needs a reply, add the “@email” label to those tasks.
2. Send emails to Todoist by forwarding
If your email client is not listed above, forward messages to a Todoist project instead. This can be especially convenient on mobile because you do not need to switch apps. This feature requires Todoist Premium.
Enable email forwarding for each destination project. Setup provides a forwarding email address specific to that project.
In your email client, forward a message to the project’s Todoist email address.
Within a minute, it will appear as a new task. The subject becomes the task title, and the email body appears in a task comment.
Return to your email client and archive the message. Repeat the process to clear the remaining inbox items.
For faster forwarding, save the project address in your address book under a short name such as “TD-Events”. You can do the same for several projects, using names such as “TD-Meetings”, “TD-Expenses”, and “TD-Leads”.
Forwarding also offers several ways to organize the resulting information:
Add priorities, labels, and dates to forwarded tasks directly from your email client.
Forward messages directly to task or project comments to retain important information.
Use team email forwarding when several teammates or email addresses need to send messages to a project.
With follow-ups tracked in Todoist, email can serve as a place for communication and recent updates rather than an ongoing list of unfinished work.
Share your #InboxZero experience with @todoist on Twitter.
Related tool: Twist, a team communication tool from the makers of Todoist.
