There is a lot of advice available from various sources regarding how to use My tasks.
However, in my personal opinion:
My tasks are created in various ways — self-assigned, assigned by other users, or generated from emails. This means the number of My tasks can grow indefinitely, and it’s largely outside my control. You can narrow things down with rules (e.g., due today/tomorrow) or filters (e.g., this week only), but the underlying volume and inflow are still not something I control.
Because of this, I find it easier to create my own “To-Do tasks” — tasks I’ve deliberately decided to work on — rather than relying on My tasks, which is essentially open-ended and beyond my control. This makes categorization simpler and lets me pick out what needs immediate attention, which reduces stress. It also seems to align well with the GTD (Getting Things Done) approach of deciding what you’re actually committing to, rather than just tracking everything that lands on you.
Here’s how I handle new tasks assigned to me: I check My inbox regularly, then:
If a task is urgent, I deal with it immediately.
If it’s not urgent, and it already belongs to a project and relates to one of my existing “To-Do tasks,” I handle it later, within that flow.
If it’s not yet related to any “To-Do task” but is important, I create a new “To-Do task” for it. That said, I don’t create new “To-Do tasks” often — usually only when it’s tied to a new project.