I've been using Superhuman for a long time as my primary email client and I love it!

Superhuman advertises itself as a perfect tool for getting to inbox zero. And it is. But what if you want to separate the inbox processing from the actual tasks and actions that some of your emails require?

If you encounter an email that needs to be acted on and it takes more than just a simple "OK" response, you need to create a to-do task for it and then archive the email.

But how do you create the task in a few seconds?

Ctrl + ⌥ Alt + Space

That's how a Things quick entry with autofill is created.

But it doesn't work within the Superhuman app 😢 That was annoying as I had to go through several steps to get the link to the email to be added as a note in a to-do.

After trying several workarounds I finally figured it out!

It required that I ditch the Superhuman app and start using it only on the browser. And not just any browser but Chrome as Superhuman sadly doesn't work on Safari.

Now getting to inbox zero is a smoother process.

Now the workflow to go through inbox goes like this for every email:

• Do I need to do something about this?

  • No -> Archive (E)

  • Yes

    • Does it take less than 2 minutes?

      • Yes -> Do it -> Archive (E)

      • No -> Create a to-do (Ctrl + ⌥ Alt + Space) -> Archive (E)

This is a small shortcut but it cumulates over time and removes friction from repeating tasks.