Email has become a to-do list—bills, questions, scheduling requests, expense reports, and more. Opening it can induce stress.
Amid these tasks were email newsletters—long-form pieces I wanted to read. In that context, the newsletters felt like tasks to work through. I felt compelled to clear them quickly to maintain inbox zero, and the reading experience became stressful rather than fun.
Inspired by Cal Newport, I set up a separate address for newsletters: interesting@philipithomas.com. I used my iCloud address—the free one Apple includes with your storage that few people use. I access this inbox with a separate app: Superhuman for transactional email, Apple Mail for newsletters. I keep Apple Mail only on an iPad by a cozy chair and on my personal laptop. It’s not on my phone or work computer.
Six months later, this change has made newsletters enjoyable again. I read them in my free time, with no tasks mixed in. There’s no pressure to achieve inbox zero—the inbox probably has a thousand items, and that’s fine.
If you face email overload, try a newsletter-only inbox that you access with a separate device.
P. S. - I also recommend setting up filters in Gmail to auto-archive receipts. Do you really need to read every email from "Uber Receipts"? Have those skip the inbox and save yourself some context shifting.
