From inbox noise to a short list of decisions.
A real workflow built and used by the Devcad author: triaging a busy inbox in minutes instead of thirty, without giving an assistant control to send, delete, or promise anything.
How it works ↘Inbox zero was a fantasy. Deciding what mattered was real.
The author opens the inbox to answer one quick question. Thirty minutes later, still scrolling. A customer asking for an update. A payment reminder. Three newsletters. A meeting change. A message that mattered—but why again? Everything sitting next to everything else. The unread number keeps growing.
Thirty minutes later, still scrolling.
The hardest part of email is not reading it. It is figulating what deserves attention now, what can wait, and what can safely stop carrying in the head.
What we built
A triaging workflow that gives back the morningThe triage categories
Five simple labels that do not pretend to be perfect. They reduce the number of decisions you have to make while looking at an inbox.
- Action — I need to do something.
- Waiting — Someone else needs to respond.
- Read later — Worth reading, but not today.
- Reference — Keep this for when I need it.
- Receipts — Purchases, invoices, confirmations.
Hermes looks at the thread, not just the latest message
A short reply can mean something very different when you can see the earlier question, the promised date, and the files already discussed.
"You have 23 unread messages" is a number. "Three people are waiting for a reply, one payment needs checking, and the rest can wait" is a workday.
The human stays in control
Hermes can summarize an email and suggest a reply. It can point out that a message sounds urgent or that a customer is waiting. But it does not quietly send a message, delete something important, or make a promise for you.
You approve the consequential move. You can approve a draft, change it, or decide not to send it. The decision remains yours.
A calmer daily routine
Three short check-ins, not one long slogWhat needs attention now
Ask Hermes to show what needs attention now, which replies are waiting for approval, which tasks do not need a reply, what is waiting on someone else, and what can be filed or read later.
Ask when you need to
Ask about new messages when you need to. You do not have to process the whole inbox every time. You can ask for customer messages, urgent requests, unanswered questions, or anything since breakfast.
Review what is still waiting
Some will become next week's work. Others will turn out not to matter anymore. A short review is enough.
The inbox did not disappear. But it stopped feeling like a fire that needed putting out before breakfast. The point was to stop every message from feeling equally urgent.
Read how it works ↗Start your own version
A smaller version you can try this weekPick one inbox
Start with one account, not every mailbox. Start small enough that a mistake is a nuisance, not a disaster.
Use the five labels
Action, Waiting, Read later, Reference, Receipts. Keep it simple enough to remember without looking it up.
Require a human for sends
Let the assistant draft, suggest, and classify. Keep sends, deletes, and bulk moves off until the workflow feels predictable.
Start with the problem, not the tooling. We will reply with a practical next step—not a sales script.
Say hello ↗