#10 Labs · Yuko
An inbox that sorts itself.
Yuko is a personal AI inbox. Texts, emails and voice notes go in. AI sorts them into things to do and things worth remembering, so nothing lives in your head.
Private for now: Yuko runs for one person, on our own phones. This page shows how it works.
What it is
One place to throw things.
Most to-do apps want you to decide where something goes before you write it down. That's the moment people give up. Yuko takes whatever you send it, the way you'd say it, and does the filing. It's for anyone who keeps notes in five places: texts to yourself, starred emails and the back of a receipt. It's an experiment we built for ourselves, and it's where we test the patterns we now build for clients.
How it works
In, sorted, out.
You never pick a folder. Yuko reads each capture and sends it where it belongs.
Goes in
- Text messageText a note or share a link to Yuko's number.
- EmailForward anything to Yuko's address.
- Voice noteTalk into the iPhone app. It writes it down on the phone itself.
- Typed noteType it in the app, as messy as you like.
AI sorts it
- What is it? A to-do, an article, an idea, a quote
- When? Pulls out dates and deadlines
- Where? Picks a category, keeps odd hashtags as tags
- Saves it even if the AI is busy, then sorts it later
Comes out
- TodayTasks with a due date and a priority.
- RemindersNudges with a reason, and a Done button right in them.
- LibraryArticles, videos, ideas and quotes worth keeping.
- GoalsBigger things the tasks roll up to.
What a day looks like
Four messages, four places.
An invented Tuesday. On the left, what got sent to Yuko. On the right, where each one landed and why.
Text · 8:12 amdentist for maya thurs 3:30 dont let me forget
Where it landedReminderThursday, 2:30 pm · Personal
A messy text became a reminder for an hour before the appointment.
Email · 9:40 amFwd: Why cold water helps you sleep (newsletter)
Where it landedLibrary · ArticleWellness · saved with its picture
Reading for later goes to the library, not your to-do list.
Voice · 12:05 pmok so um the quarterly thing, I need the numbers from finance before Friday, and, uh, I should also book the room I think
Where it landedToday · 2 tasksGet Q3 numbers from finance (Fri) · Book the meeting room
A rambling voice note became two clean tasks. The filler words are gone.
Text · 6:48 pmidea: a tool lending shelf for our street #neighbors
Where it landedLibrary · IdeaPersonal · tag: neighbors
#neighbors isn't a category yet, so it stays a tag. Categories don't multiply on their own.
Why it matters: the report goes out Monday, and finance is out Friday afternoon.
Every reminder says why it matters, and you can finish, snooze or mute it without opening the app.
What makes it different
It does the filing, and it knows when to stop.
You never sort
Most apps make you pick a list first. Yuko lets you send it anything and decides where it goes.
Two kinds of things
To-dos and things worth remembering are different. Yuko keeps them apart, so your task list stays short.
Reminders with a reason
Each nudge says why it matters. You can mark it done, snooze it or mute it right from the reminder.
It backs off
More reminders made things worse, so Yuko caps them. Texts are limited to a few a week per item.
What we learned building it
The AI was the easy part.
More reminders make things worse
Our first reminder schedule had no ceiling. Ignore something and the nudges kept coming. We added caps and moved the early nudges to email, and the noise dropped to almost nothing.
Check that it arrived, not that it left
For months, Yuko's text replies never reached the phone. The carrier was blocking them, and the app counted sent as delivered. Now we check delivery, not just the send.
Never lose a capture
When the AI service is overloaded, Yuko saves the note anyway and sorts it once things calm down. A lost note costs more than a late one.
Voice works best on the phone
We tried three ways to turn speech into text. One quietly cut off notes after about two minutes. The one that runs on the iPhone itself handles long, rambling notes and never sends audio anywhere.
Phones do strange things
iPhones sometimes split a shared link and the hashtag you typed into two texts, in either order. Yuko waits a minute and pairs them back up.
Keep categories on a leash
If every hashtag became a category, the sidebar would fill up in a week. A hashtag only becomes a category once you've created it on purpose.
What it means for clients
The same patterns, on your business.
Yuko is small, but the moves inside it are the ones we bring to client work. Take input the way people already send it. Let AI do the sorting. Never flood anyone.
Inbox triage
Customer emails and form fills sorted by what they need before anyone opens them.
Intake from anywhere
Text, email or a form all landing in one clean list, with dates and details pulled out.
Reminders people don't mute
Follow-ups for carts, renewals or appointments that say why and stop when they should.
Want something like this?
Yuko isn't open to the public. If you'd like the same idea working for your team or your customers, tell us what you're juggling and we'll sketch it out.