Your Inbox

Tidy your inbox with a brief, not a rulebook

Brief it, test run it, save it as a skill and set it for every day. Four pastes, and nothing is ever deleted or sent.

Step One, Brief It And Test Run It

Here from the carousel? This is where it starts. Paste it into Claude Code, or into the Claude app with your email connected. Claude checks it can reach your inbox, then asks you what you would tell a new assistant, one question at a time, and runs over your whole inbox without moving a thing, so you see every call it would make before it makes any.

Paste this into Claude

I want you to keep my inbox down to what needs me, the way an assistant would if I asked them to tidy it once a day. Two rules hold whatever I say later. You never delete anything, you only file it with a label so it is one click back, and you never send anything. First check which setup we are in and that you can read my email and change its labels. If you can't, tell me plainly what to connect and stop there. Then ask me, one question at a time, what I would tell a new assistant, like what counts as dealt with, what has to stay where I can see it and where things get filed. Anything you are unsure about stays in my inbox with a label called Review. Then test run it over my whole inbox and change nothing. Show me what you would file and where, what you would leave, and why.

Step Two, Correct It Once

The test run will get a few wrong, and each one is a rule you never thought to say out loud, like the reply you left unread on purpose because you still owe something on it. Tell it once, it becomes one plain sentence, and it runs the test again until every call looks like yours.

Paste this after the first test run

Go through that test run with me one group at a time and ask what you got wrong. Turn each answer into a rule I would give an assistant, one plain sentence each, and show me the rules. If anything I set up before stops you, like an instruction never to move email, tell me and suggest the change. Then test run again, still changing nothing.

Step Three, Save It As A Skill

Once the test run is right, Claude files your inbox for real and writes everything you agreed into a skill, a short file of instructions it reads whenever the job comes up. From then on “tidy my inbox” gets the same tidy every time, without you explaining it again. What a skill is is in the free course if you want the longer version.

Paste this once the test run looks right

That test run is right, so file my inbox for real now, exactly as it showed. Then save everything we agreed, the two rules included, as a skill called email-tidy, so that when I say "tidy my inbox" it runs the same way. Show me the file and where it lives. If this setup cannot save a skill itself, give me the file and tell me where to add it.

Step Four, Every Day

A tidy you have to remember to start is one more thing to remember. This puts it on a schedule, so the inbox you open in the morning is already down to what needs you, and Claude tells you what it set up and how to switch it off.

Paste this to put it on every day

Put the email-tidy skill on a schedule so it runs every day without me asking, using whatever this setup offers. Tell me exactly what you created, when it runs and how to switch it off. If this setup cannot run on a schedule, say so plainly and give me the one line to send each morning instead.

What It Did For One Accountant

I set this up with an accountant who runs her own small practice, on a call in October. She is organised, and once something is dealt with she files it in that client's folder, but a few busy weeks had left her inbox full of emails she had read and dealt with and not filed. Her brief came down to three things she would tell anyone. An email she has read can go in its client's folder, an unread one stays because unread is her to do list, and anything Claude is not sure about gets a Review label and stays where she can see it.

Claude worked out which folder each email belonged in from where she had filed that sender before. She went through its calls and said they were all correct, judgement calls included. The two things it raised were the ones in step two, the replies she leaves unread as a reminder, and a line she had written for Claude earlier that told it never to move email at all.

Why A Brief Beats A Rulebook

I ran my own inbox tidy off a rulebook for nine weeks, nearly four thousand words of what to file and what never to touch, and every time it got one wrong I added another rule. Today's Claude has the common sense an assistant has, and all those rules were stopping it using it. I stripped mine back to a brief of about five hundred words, it now tidies all day, and my inbox went from 85 emails to 17.

One Honest Bit

A brief is judgement, not a formula, so it keeps needing you a little. Every so often it files something you had read and still wanted in front of you, and the fix is to tell it once so the rule goes into the skill. A schedule on your own computer also only runs while the computer is awake, and your schedule runs with the laptop shut is how to move it somewhere that is always on.

Where This Goes Next

A tidy inbox is half the job, and the other half is the replies. Your inbox already has the replies written sets Claude up to draft them for you to send, and it pairs with this, because the tidy only files what is already dealt with.

Want to get better at this?

Let's set up your agent ecosystem.

This page is one job. The whole thing is a set of them running off the same foundation, the folder your AI works out of, the brief on how you like things done, the accounts it can reach and the skills that run off all of it, so your admin gets done the way you would do it. It is what I teach one to one, on your own machine and against your own work, and the quickest way to find out what yours would look like is a proper chat about it.

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