Humans can't sort email

Every time I delegate a task to my assistants, there's a brief glimmer of hope.

This time, maybe this time, they'll remember to do it exactly the way I want.

Don't get me wrong. My assistants Tina and Karen are amazing. But they're only human.

And humans being humans, they get distracted. Things get busy. My travel schedule gets crazy. We host an event. Before I know it, their attention moves elsewhere and my inbox starts to get messy again.

And no matter how many admin people we hire, the same thing always seems to happen. Parkinson's Law kicks in:

"Work expands so as to fill the resources available for its completion."

So, I finally gave up on humans for these sorts of rote tasks. I freed my assistants to focus on the high level stuff and built a robot to tackle my email.

Lately, I've been obsessed with this tool called Lindy that lets you create AI assistants. With it, you can make your own digital Rube Goldberg machines to complete almost any digital task, hooking up AI models to all the services you use (Gmail, Google Drive, Twilio, HubSpot—you name it) and having AI do things on your behalf. This could be as simple as sending you a text with a brief on the person you're about to meet, or as complex as a 20-step automation that writes email newsletters for you (don't worry, I wrote this by hand).

Last month, I built an automation that triages my email better than any human assistant ever could.

Every incoming email gets read by an AI agent that asks one question: "Does Andrew actually need to see this?" If no (about 80% of emails), it gets archived instantly.

Gone. Finished. Never appears in my inbox.

For emails I do need to see, it applies a label: Logistics, Kids, Events, Homes, Book, whatever.

Then it does all sorts of magical stuff:

• Kid's school emails get auto-added to my calendar with reminders (permission slips, field trips, stuff I need to pack, etc)—this one is a total game changer
• Anything needing my signature gets sent to my legal counsel, receipts go to accounting
• When someone reaches out wanting to sell their company or offering an investment, the AI will actually do a quick background check - who is this person? Are they legit? Does this seem dubious? If yes, instant archive. If no, it gets flagged to me to respond.
• Does it seem time sensitive? If yes, it adds an ASAP flag.
• And a ton more

My inbox is the cleanest it's been in years and I'm adding to the automation daily. So. Freaking. Cool.

If you want to hear me nerd out about my entire setup, check out my recent Superhuman podcast interview.

Originally published in the A crafty Dutchman pinned me down issue of Never Enough.