A simple way to hand off your inbox without losing control

An overflowing inbox quietly steals more founder hours than almost anything else. The good news is that it is also one of the safest tasks to hand off, once you set a few simple guardrails.

Give your assistant clear rules for what they can handle on their own and what must wait for you. A short shared document works well: which senders to answer, which to file, which to flag, and which to ignore. The clearer the rules, the less they need to ask and the faster they move.

Start with triage, not full replies. Let your assistant sort, label, and draft responses for your review. You stay in control of every message that leaves, while the time you spend on the inbox drops by most of a day each week.

After a few weeks, trust grows naturally. You will find yourself approving drafts without changes, then asking your assistant to send them directly. That is the moment the inbox stops feeling like a second job, and starts feeling like a system that runs itself.