Catch up on my inbox with a digest grouped by topic and thread
Turns a pile of pasted emails into a digest grouped by topic and conversation, with urgency and actions for each.
The prompt
Help me catch up on a backlog of emails by turning them into a digest.
Emails: [PASTE EMAILS with sender, date, subject, and body - e.g. after leave or a busy week]
My role and current priorities: [ROLE; TOP PRIORITIES]
Period covered: [e.g. "last 5 working days"]
Steps:
1. Group the emails into conversations: combine replies, forwards, and related messages on the same issue even if subjects differ.
2. Group the conversations into topics (projects, clients, admin, FYI).
3. For each conversation, read to the latest message so you report where it stands now, not where it started.
Return:
1. Top of mind - the 3 to 5 things I most need to know, in priority order.
2. Digest by topic - for each conversation: | Thread | People | Latest status | Urgency (High/Med/Low) | Action for me (Reply / Decide / Do / Read / None) | Deadline |
3. Already resolved - threads that sorted themselves out while I was away, so I can skip them.
4. FYI only - one line each.
5. Possible issues - anything that looks like a missed escalation, conflicting instructions, or phishing.
Rules:
- Base urgency on stated deadlines and impact, not tone or exclamation marks.
- Don't guess missing dates; write "no date given".
Before pasting, remove anything you're not allowed to share with an AI tool (customer personal data, passwords, confidential material).
Highlighted [brackets] are blanks to replace with your own details.
Fill in the blanks and use this promptMore Email & Workplace Communication prompts
What to fill in
- ROLE; TOP PRIORITIES
- e.g. "last 5 working days"
How this prompt is built
This prompt follows the Few-Shot structure (Few-shot prompting). A few-shot prompt includes one or more worked examples of the input and the output you want, so the model can copy the pattern instead of guessing it.
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