Half of "checking email" is really sorting: what needs me, what can wait, what needs nothing. Define your buckets once and let Claude do the sorting pass.
The power of exactly one bucket
The template below has one strict rule: every item goes in exactly one bucket. No "sort of both," no "it depends." That constraint is what makes the output useful. A pile sorted into clean stacks is a to-do list. A pile sorted into overlapping maybes is still a pile.
Your buckets should describe what happens next, not what the item is about. "NEEDS ME TODAY / STAFF CAN HANDLE / NO REPLY NEEDED" beats "billing / scheduling / other," because the first set tells you what to do and the second just relabels the pile.
The workflow
Save this one, swap in your own buckets
Sort each item below into exactly one of these buckets:
NEEDS ME TODAY / STAFF CAN HANDLE / NO REPLY NEEDED
For each item give me one line: the item number, the bucket, and a short reason. Then list the NEEDS ME TODAY items in the order I should handle them.
THE ITEMS:
1. {paste item}
2. {paste item}
3. {paste item}
Number the items when you paste them. It keeps the output easy to match back against the pile.