Your Guide to Getting Productive with Gmail: Managing the Flow

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Last fourth dimension we redirected all of our email accounts to the 1 place, our cardinal email hub at Gmail. In one case yous take all your accounts trickling into Gmail, you've got to manage that catamenia of data so that a) it'due south possible to become through all of your email in fifteen minutes or less and b) it'due south easy to find next week, next calendar month and next twelvemonth.

The Inbox is Sacred

Yous must learn to see your inbox every bit an near sacred place: the worst sin you can commit against it is leaving messages in in that location to rot. I'yard non talking about days or weeks. Y'all've got to deal with each message in your inbox during your email processing session. It cannot be in the inbox once you've finished.

Since we're using multiple email accounts, we have them filtering into a variety of labels. If nosotros don't, the boundaries betwixt the roles and data associated with each account becomes blurred and quite often, just plain confusing. The inbox is a very useful tool for processing and this separation is an unfortunate necessity.

In the last post nosotros talked about using the All Mail service characteristic to replace this, merely the problem with this approach is that you can't "process out" the incoming data this manner. At that place are a couple of alternative solutions we'll accost in a moment, just the simplest way at this betoken is to deal with all mail as though it were in your inbox – information technology's an attitude hack, rather than a technological 1.

Dealing with Letters in Your Inbox

The first step to processing your email is, evidently, to read it. Unfortunately, this is where many people stop (and it'southward frustrating when you're trying to get solid communication going).

Read smart, not hard. Give the subject and first paragraph of the electronic mail a browse to determine its relevancy, because there will always exist emails that are pointless and yous don't need to read them. If it's totally useless to you, you can delete the message. "Never delete an email again" is not a mantra I totally believe in.

If you've kept the message, you tin can read it properly. Past the mode, I should mention that if more 15% of your inbox processing consists of deleting letters, y'all're probably not creating plenty pre-qualifiers and smart "obstacles" to people who want your email address. The + hack works well hither, which we'll get to soon.

Once you've finished reading the message, you must process it. There are a few outcomes:

• Reply and archive,
• Reply and delete,
• Reply, turn it into an action, archive
• Plough it into an action, archive
• Annal
• Delete

If you're turning the email into an action you'll well-nigh e'er want to archive information technology, non delete it, for hereafter reference. For messages that you need to deal with after, or that call for y'all to perform a job, plough that into an action in your task listing or GTD software immediately so clear the message out of your inbox.

Creating actions from emails before clearing them out of your mode is the all-time thing you tin do for your email productivity. Keeping emails in the inbox because there is a task awaiting creates "email apathy" and things go unorganized and cluttered.

Culling Solutions to Using All Mail

Using All Postal service should work perfectly if y'all process each unread message as soon equally you open it and read it, but perhaps it's merely not working for y'all. At that place are a few other ways to deal with this.

Starring All Electronic mail – the Star feature of Gmail is useful for mark items of involvement that you lot want to come dorsum to later (even though, under this system, we attempt to avoid that). If you don't need or use this feature, you can make it work equally a faux inbox. The star volition signal that a message needs to be processed.

Go dorsum to the Filter setup window nether Settings, and set the To: field to an asterisk (*). The To: field tells Gmail to select emails based on who the electronic mail is sent to, but the * tells information technology to choice upwardly all e-mail. We'll become into the asterisk and its usefulness to filters in a moment.

Click Next Footstep and tick the "Star it" box. You lot at present accept a filter that stars all your incoming mail, and as you process each item, you can remove it from the list by clicking on the star, which is normally adjacent to the "From" field in listing view.

Not using automatic filters is another solution that I do not recommend. This takes all the power out of your arrangement, but it will cause every email to menstruation straight into the inbox where you tin procedure it into labels manually. I think this defeats the purpose and adds extra piece of work that the computer tin do for you, and in my experience information technology has been far from an optimal solution.

Using Asterisks in Filters

I mentioned the asterisk earlier when we talked about setting upwardly a filter that stars your incoming postal service. The asterisk, simple as it is, provides a very useful tool and provides more dynamic e-mail filtering.

Let's accept a wait at how it works. Say I have a regular client who has given me iii unlike email addresses (it really does happen). I don't desire to have 3 labels for each one of those email addresses, and I want to basically care for them all as one. Using the asterisk nosotros tin can accomplish this really easily.

In the To: field of the filter setup, place an * earlier the remainder of the domain name. So let's say I have copywriter@unproductiveclient.com, editor@unproductiveclient.com and joel@unproductiveclient.com. To route all these email addresses into the one identify, using one filter, all I have to do is set the To: field every bit *@unproductiveclient.com.

This works with the other fields, as well. For instance, if I receive e-mail from a whole bunch of people at i company to my main address and want to separate it from all my other mail, I can prepare the From: field to *@thatonecompany.com.

The + Hack

And finally, nosotros have the + hack. This is groovy for pre-qualifying your email. Despite the fact that the sender may be a stranger y'all've never met or heard of before, you lot know what the email is well-nigh because it landed in the right characterization. Nigh sounds like magic.

With Gmail, you tin can add a + add the cease of your username with a keyword fastened. For example, if your e-mail accost is lifehack.example@gmail.com yous can even so receive messages directed to lifehack.example+invoices@gmail.com. Amend all the same, you lot can apply filters to these electronic mail addresses. I use this on my own site, where username+postideas@gmail.com goes to a Post Ideas label, and so on.

Better nevertheless, you tin create semi-disposable email addresses without having to go create one with a disposable mail service. If a site is demanding your e-mail address and you're worried they'll transport you spam, only add together a +sitename to your address and you can e'er filter that fabric to the Trash afterwards on.

Stay tuned for more than communication on setting upwardly a productive electronic mail system with Gmail.

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Source: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/your-guide-to-getting-productive-with-gmail-managing-the-flow.html

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