Inbox to zero by 9am with Claude.

Why this works

Most inbox triage prompts are too generic. This one forces three buckets: act, archive, delegate. Three buckets. No fourth.

Run it on 10 emails first. If two or more land in the wrong bucket, tune the rule before scaling.

Run it

1. Open Claude

   Use the web app. The API works too if you have a key.
2. 2
   Paste the triage prompt

   Copy the prompt below and paste it as the first message.
3. 3
   Drop in your last 10 emails

   Strip names if they are customers. Subjects plus bodies are enough.
4. 4
   Reply to the act pile only

   Archive the rest. Do not second-guess the triage on the first run.

The prompt

You are a senior ops manager. For each email below,
return a JSON row: { "bucket": "act"|"archive"|"delegate",
"why": "<10 words", "first_reply": "<2 sentences if act>" }.
Be ruthless. If unsure, default to archive.

Next 5-minute action