From the Yak Shaving department Working from the top of the inbox is a recipe for working on stuff that isn't important. But, sometimes you need to write emails.  The problem is, to write an email you need to first go to your email client, which usually means passing by your inbox.  For me, this often means getting distracted by something there, and possibly forgetting whatever it was I was going to write. Here's my solution, using Gmail and the awesome Quicksilver for Mac.  (if you're a mac user and don't use quicksilver, you should) Go to the quicksilver preferences, then go to Triggers.  Create a new "hot key" trigger, and paste "https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&view=cm&fs=1&tf=1" into the prompt.  Save, then press the "info" icon, and open up the trigger settings. Under "Settings", enter a Hot Key.  I use command-shift-M.  When you're done it should look like this:

Now, no matter where you are on your computer, you can type command-shift-M and get a fresh Gmail Compose window. Now take a deep sigh of relief before your email apnea sets back in again...