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Justin's Obsidian Academy

2. Inbox Zero

TL;DR — Run “process my inbox” and Claude reads every file in 00-Inbox/, classifies each item (task, idea, person, meeting note, web clip, voice memo), expands shorthand into real notes, and files them to the right folder. Inbox returns to empty.

This is the workflow that keeps friction-free capture also friction-free to use. You dump anything into 00-Inbox/ from any device. Claude sorts it later.

When to use it

Section titled “When to use it”
  • End of day, after capturing throughout
  • Whenever the inbox starts to feel cluttered (more than 5–10 items)
  • After a phone-heavy day where you’ve been dropping things from Syncthing
  • When you have 5 minutes and don’t want to think about where a thought belongs

For each item Claude finds, it’ll propose a destination — task, idea, person, meeting, etc. — and show you the plan before executing. If items are obvious, it just files them. For ambiguous ones, it asks one batched question with 2–3 options.

Under the hood

Section titled “Under the hood”
  • Skill location: ~/.claude/skills/process-inbox/SKILL.md
  • Reads: 00-Inbox/ (every file except README.md)
  • Writes: various — depends on classification:
    • Tasks → appended to today’s daily note (10-Daily/YYYY-MM-DD.md)
    • Ideas → expanded note in 40-Resources/ideas/
    • Web clips / references → 40-Resources/[topic]/
    • Person mentions → 60-People/[name].md (uses 90-Templates/person.md if creating)
    • Project updates → 20-Projects/[project]/log.md
    • Meeting raw notes → routes to process-meeting skill
  • Deletes: source file from 00-Inbox/ only after successful write elsewhere

Watch out for

Section titled “Watch out for”
  • Stream files like inbox.md — they’re parsed entry-by-entry. After processing, the file is cleared back to its stub.
  • Voice memos in 00-Inbox/voice/ — if it’s just an audio file with no transcript, the skill flags it and recommends running transcription separately.
  • Empty files get deleted silently.
  • Old unprocessed items (>30 days, seen multiple times) get moved to 50-Archive/inbox-unprocessed/ with a warning. The system tells you you’ve been ignoring stuff.
  • Big batches (20+ items) won’t auto-process — the skill shows the plan first and waits for your nod.

Make it yours

Section titled “Make it yours”
  • Add a category: edit the skill to add e.g. “recipe” routing to 40-Resources/recipes/.
  • Auto-process small batches: add a setting in your prompt — “process my inbox, auto-file anything under 5 items”.
  • Skip certain files: add a frontmatter pin: true to any inbox file you want to keep for review later.
Section titled “Related workflows”
Daily Driver Run this right after the morning note builds
Meeting Machine Where raw meeting notes from the inbox go