In a nutshell, my approach is:

1. Set up separate task management from e-mail
2. Process all your e-mail to inbox zero
3. Work on projects by ignoring e-mail for an hour or two at a time.
4. When you're at a stopping point on projects, deal just with important e-mail, delete unimportant e-mail and throw the rest into the To Process folder.
5. Do #2 at least once a week, sometimes 2x or 3x.

I just wrote a post on how I get to Inbox Zero, and I specifically talked about the problem of having your inbox for a to-do list. You're wasting mental cycles reinterpreting the action item every time you see the e-mail.

http://www.aaronklein.com/2009/11/inbox-zero/

Hope it helps.

In a nutshell, my approach is:

1. Set up separate task management from e-mail
2. Process all your e-mail to inbox zero
3. Work on projects by ignoring e-mail for an hour or two at a time.
4. When you're at a stopping point on projects, deal just with important e-mail, delete unimportant e-mail and throw the rest into the To Process folder.
5. Do #2 at least once a week, sometimes 2x or 3x.

I just wrote a post on how I get to Inbox Zero, and I specifically talked about the problem of having your inbox for a to-do list. You're wasting mental cycles reinterpreting the action item every time you see the e-mail.

http://www.aaronklein.com/2009/11/inbox-zero/

Hope it helps.