The Inbox Irony: How I Reclaimed 42 Hours Without Adding Another Task
I spend a significant proportion of my working hours inside other people's inboxes. Triage, follow-ups, filing, flagging. It's detailed work that needs attention and care. Which means my own inbox often gets the scraps.
If you work in operations, admin, or executive support, you'll recognise this pattern. Client communications stay pristine. Your own email becomes a chaotic afterthought, checked in stolen moments between calls.
I tried the usual fixes. Folders. Filters. Scheduled email times. They helped, but they all required ongoing effort. Another system to maintain. Another thing to remember.
A quieter solution
SaneBox changed that. It runs in the background, sorting incoming mail before I even see it. Newsletters, notifications, and low-priority messages get filtered into a separate folder. What lands in my main inbox is what actually needs my attention. No rules to write. No daily maintenance. It learns from my behaviour and adjusts.
Four features have made the biggest difference:
Trainable filtering. SaneBox learns from your behaviour. Move an email to a different folder and it adjusts. Over time, it gets sharper. You're not stuck with someone else's idea of what's important.
SaneBlack Hole. Drag an email there once, and you'll never hear from that sender again. No unsubscribe links. No confirmation emails. Just silence.
SaneReminders. If I send an email and don't get a reply within a set timeframe, it resurfaces automatically. No need to flag, star, or add a task. The follow-up prompt arrives when I need it.
The Daily Digest. Everything filtered out of my inbox gets summarised in one email. I scan it once, act on anything urgent, and archive the rest. Five minutes, done.
The numbers
In 2025, SaneBox saved me 42 hours. This is tracked data from the platform itself. 42 hours is more than a full working week. Time I didn't have to find. Time that came back to me without adding a single new habit or system to manage. For context: if your inbox adds just 10 minutes of unnecessary triage each day, that's over 60 hours a year. The maths compounds quickly.
The SaneBox end of year review
Worth a look
I'm generally cautious about recommending tools. Most add complexity rather than remove it. SaneBox is one of the few that genuinely runs without me. If you manage communications for clients and your own inbox has become the neglected corner of your business, this is worth a look. It works with whatever email provider you already use and takes about five minutes to set up.
I've included my referral link below. This is a tool that's quietly made my work better for years.
