If you don't have time to write down a new story, task, todo item, assignment and the related description, then simply set a reminder for yourself to create the task in an hour when you have 5 or 10 minutes to spare. Google, Siri and Slack all work with remind me to... in an hour
Schedule events as early as possible. This has multiple benefits:
- Easier to postpone meetings than reschedule sooner
- Flexibility to schedule follow-ups if necessary
- Meetings enable knowledge-sharing to unblock isolated productivity
- Understand tasks that have no "or else" and consider deleting, reorganizing or deprioritizing
Deleting garbage emails only blocks the individual email, whereas unsubscribing, marking as spam and filtering prevents all subsequent garbage from that sender. Yes, there's lots of spam, but this is a marathon, not a race. Better than doom-scrolling.
Emails typically should be handled immediately, scheduled in a calendar, or prioritized in a todo list.
If your unread email count is too massive, that's okay. You are not your inbox. Just pick a date after which you feel is reasonable and archive or delete everything before that point.