Use case

Best Practices for Inbox

Inbox is most effective when you treat it as a daily ritual — a way to triage signals and return focus to real work.

Best Practice	Why It Matters	Examples
Make Inbox part of your routine	Checking at the start or end of the day ensures nothing lingers unseen.	Each morning, scan Unread to clear yesterday’s updates; each evening, mark read to reset.
Triage using the Unread filter	Keeps your view focused on what needs attention now.	Filter by Unread to review only fresh signals, then mark them read once you’ve acted.
Act where the work lives	Notifications are pointers, not destinations — clicking through reduces duplication.	Click a “Task updated” notification to open the task, update status, or comment directly.
Use “Mark all read” strategically	Clears clutter so new updates stand out.	After catching up at the end of the week, mark all read to start fresh Monday.
Tune email settings	Prevents duplicate signals across Motion and your inbox.	Disable email alerts for mentions if you prefer handling them in Motion’s Inbox.

Key principle: Inbox is a signal layer — catch, act, clear. The goal isn’t to live in Inbox, but to use it as a safeguard that keeps you focused on the work that matters.

Common Pitfalls & How Inbox Helps

Even with a central hub, it’s easy to slip into old habits. Inbox is designed to prevent the most common issues teams face with notifications:

Pitfall	How Inbox Helps
Badge fatigue → Notifications pile up, and users ignore them.	Inbox groups all updates in one place with filters and “Mark all read,” making it easy to reset and start fresh.
Missed updates → Relying only on email or chat for alerts leads to gaps.	Inbox centralizes all Motion notifications, ensuring every change is surfaced inside the app.
Clutter and noise → Too many non-critical notifications drown out important ones.	Users can tune subscriptions and email settings to keep signals clean and focused.
Staying in Inbox too long → Treating it like another work surface.	Inbox is designed as a launchpad — click through notifications to act where the work lives, then clear.
Over-reliance on memory → Forgetting to circle back to updates.	The Unread filter works like a “to-do” list for notifications, ensuring nothing slips through.

Key idea: Inbox isn’t where you do the work — it’s where you make sure no work is missed.

Connections to Motion

Inbox isn’t an isolated feature — it’s the notification layer that ties the rest of Motion together.

• Tasks → Get notified when you’re assigned, mentioned, or when task statuses change. Click through to open the task directly and act.

• Projects → See stage changes, mentions, and status updates. Inbox keeps project shifts visible without having to manually check dashboards.

• Motion Docs → Get alerted when you’re mentioned in a Motion doc or a comment. Notifications link back to the exact spot for fast context.

• Teams → Invitations, mentions, and updates flow into Inbox, so team changes never go unnoticed.

• Meetings and Bookings → Notifications confirm bookings and surface completed meeting insights.

• AI Employees → When an AI Employee completes a run with a “Send to Inbox” step, you get a summary notification with a direct link to the output.

Key idea: Inbox isn’t where the work happens — it’s the launchpad that ensures you see what changed, then jump straight back into the work itself.