The inbox is a time sink dressed up as work. Most of it is sorting — which are leads, which are clients, which can wait, which are junk — before you’ve even replied to anything.
Hand the first pass to AI. A new email comes in, AI tags it (lead / client / vendor / noise) and drafts a suggested reply. You skim and approve instead of writing from scratch. The inbox stops running your day.
A few ways in:
Gmail + an AI assistant — like the built-in Gemini features, or a tool like Shortwave.
Superhuman AI — fast, premium, if email is a huge part of your work.
A Make/Zapier flow wired to your own AI — for full control.
Start small — just auto-draft replies to new leads — and grow from there.
— Mainspring
🔧 Want a hand? Paste this into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini:
“I get a lot of email and want AI to sort new messages (lead, client, vendor, junk) and draft replies for me to approve. I use [Gmail/Outlook]. Recommend the simplest setup for someone non-technical and walk me through it. Ask me one question at a time.”
P.S. Tomorrow: collect glowing reviews on autopilot
Heads up: the Make link above is an affiliate link — if you sign up through it, Mainspring earns a commission at no extra cost to you. We only link tools we’d recommend anyway..