Are your to-do lists never complete? Have you ever responded to an urgent email a month (or three) later? Consider a yesterbox.

The other day, I blogged about racing through my to-do lists. The problem with that is sometimes I am more focused on getting tasks done than completing them according to my high standards. So although the work is finished, it may not actually be my best work. 

I recently read The New Rules of Work... by the creators of the Muse. Honestly, I found it a mixed bag, but one intriguing tip it mentioned was the yesterbox.

Here's the idea. Your to-do list for today is all your unanswered emails from the day before. So any email you receive today, unless it requires an immediate response within 48 hours, you actually put on your "to-do" list for tomorrow. 

And if all your emails are "urgent" and require a response within 48 hours, put feelers out for a job that isn't so "fast-paced..."

So every day, you know exactly how many emails you will be responding to (not counting any actual urgent emails that may pop up that day). All emails you receive actually receive a response within 48 hours. No more responding to emails two months later! 

Honestly, I never tried this. My personal inbox is sitting at 50 unread messages currently, so maybe it's worth a shot! Have you ever tried a yesterbox or some similar method? How did it work for you?