The fractional CFO has three. The consultant has one per client plus her own. The founder advising two boards has four, and one of them is a Gmail from 2011 that important people inexplicably still use. Multiple email accounts used to be an edge case; portfolio careers made them normal, and nobody updated the advice.
Why is a second inbox more than twice the work?
Because every account replicates the full cost structure: its own checking loop, its own backlog, its own notification stream, plus a new cost none of them had alone: switching. Each hop between accounts is a context switch, and the research prices those at roughly 23 minutes of refocus (UC Irvine). Three inboxes checked reactively is a day spent commuting between them.
Unify the rhythm, not necessarily the mail
The core move: all accounts get processed in the same fixed windows, as one session with N tabs. Two or three windows a day, every account to zero decisions, done. The batching method doesn't care how many tabs are open; what it removes is the per-account checking loop, which is where the multiplication lived.
Whether to also merge the mail (forwarding everything into one inbox) is a separate call: fine for simple personal setups, wrong wherever separation carries meaning: client confidentiality, employer property, the clean exit when an engagement ends. Merge attention, keep custody separate.
One system above the inboxes
Tasks and waiting-fors from all accounts belong on single lists, because deadlines don't care which address they arrived at. The Tuesday commitment from the board seat and the Tuesday commitment from the client engagement need to fight for the same Tuesday, visibly. Per-account response standards can differ (same-day for clients, 48 hours for the advisory role), but the system that tracks them is one; the solo consultant setup runs on the same principle.
The multi-account layer Pidgy holds
Pidgy connects to Gmail and Outlook accounts and gives each the identical treatment: arrivals sorted, tasks and promises extracted, waiting-fors tracked, routine replies drafted in your voice for approval. The practical effect is the one that matters: three inboxes stop being three jobs and become one short review, with custody of each account exactly where it legally belongs.
