
Don’t drown in email: How to use Gmail more efficiently - allanberger
http://klinger.io/post/71640845938/dont-drown-in-email-how-to-use-gmail-more
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AlwaysBCoding
This is really great. Thanks for posting. Another necessary gmail tool is
"Boomerang" [http://www.boomeranggmail.com/](http://www.boomeranggmail.com/)
which allows you to control what time certain emails will go out. Great for
2am coding sessions where you want to send an email that will end up in
someone's inbox at 8:30am but you know that you won't be awake to send it.

~~~
thirdtruck
Seconded. I can't count the number of connections that I've rekindled after
several months of no reply, just because I had a reminder and a willingness to
try again.

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jes5199
I don't understand why people are constantly acting like they are required to
read email. I currently have over nine-thousand unread emails in my gmail. And
look! Nothing bad happened! _That 's_ getting things done. Things that _aren
't email_.

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ihaveajob
Some of us are wired to bring that little red number to 0. Latent OCD,
perhaps? It just makes me itch inside when it looks like someone might be
waiting for a response. I need to learn to live with it.

~~~
GrinningFool
On the other hand, many others have _been_ wired to think that number should
be zero.

If someone needs me urgently for something, they can ping me in our company
hipchat or use any of a number of methods to contact me by voice. Email is
lowest priority.

I do get through my emails, but it's not something I allow to interrupt my day
repeatedly.

Since I switched over to this, the self-inflicted stress over keeping my inbox
empty has gone away. ANd I still get the work done that I need to get done.

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ernestipark
This is actually almost exactly my email flow. Multiple inboxes with filters
so email gets assigned and put in its place quickly. Instead of stars I use
labels though. Anything in my inbox I need to handle right away or mark as
todo. Very efficient and keeps the inbox at less than 10 emails most of the
time.

Combined with Gmail shortcuts, you can handle emails very quickly in Gmail.
These features combined are the main reason why I never give more than a
cursory glance at all these slick new email apps since this workflow is so
quick and easy for me.

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girvo
Neat hack, I've got something similar setup!

Just as an editing comment: You'll want to change "loose" to "lose" in the
article. It's an easy one to mess up!

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sachleen
I had no idea Gmail had multiple "stars". Thank you for this!

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bloometal
Fantastic, just set my inbox up using this. So excited.

One other hack idea:

If you use your android phone to send reminders ('Note to Self' voice command)

You can set up a filter for mails with Subject:"Note to self" Apply label
'yellow-bang' Skip: inbox

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Nux
It saddens me to see efforts on getting people even more hooked on gmail.

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dlr720
Being obsessed with productivity I would say sanebox.com is a must have and
coupled with the boxer iOS app it truly is the best email solution I have used
in the past 20 years. I hate to pay for service in an arena where most is free
but the cost of sanebox is worth it to me. I don't work or know anyone at the
company so this is truly a not bias recommend. I have zero inbox and a killer
reminder capability built in. Btw - sanebox did what online service companies
"should" do, same as 37signals, they offer a service worth paying for, and
don't need to get acquired to make money, only sell their service for a price
people are willing to pay - seems like a solid biz plan, eh?

~~~
amit_rele
As the joker says ' if you are good at something don't offer it free', and I
completely agree to that as a business, but as a customer ( and definitely
someone who is not early adopter) I would find paying for a service like this
a little over the top, and there could be many like me. So the target audience
is limited right now for SaneBox unless it shifts to the enterprise segment,
that is an area where it can make a bigger dent.

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sjs1234
I use the mailbox iPhone app. The killer feature for me is that I can snooze
an email. It's close to ideal for me. This ability to show multiple inboxes on
the desktop might be an interesting tool to add visibility to something on
another list.

~~~
joebeetee
Can't beat Mailbox. Wish they had a desktop app too. The snoozing thing is
essential for moving stuff out of my headspace until I can think about it. I
wish everything in life had a swipe to snooze.

~~~
bdharva
I enjoy using Mailbox to the point that I rarely use desktop Gmail anymore --
a keyboard on my iPad helps. It's also easy enough to implement the filtered
inbox views mentioned in the article for Mailbox folders, allowing the same
sorting functionality on mobile (unlike the star-based solution).

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znowi
I find it sadly amusing to see people enamored with yet another prop for Gmail
workflow, when just a few months ago we learned that our Gmail is being
casually read by NSA, likely with Google's knowledge and assistance.

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snowwrestler
Good thinking. There's no chance that the NSA is reading any other email. I
mean, it's not like email is sent through the Internet as unencrypted plain
text.

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zobzu
looks like my email flow except i'm using a fat client and no gmail.
(thunderbird in my case).

i never understood people not doing "zero" inbox and not sorting mail
automatically. they're always complaining. email never took me much time and i
get about 1K a day. Obviously I don't read 1k a day. Nobody does.

in my case starring = queued for later replies, probably evening or next
morning = todo list, or whatever you wanna call it.

inbox = disruptive messages, rare.

some mailboxes = phone alert on new mail (super important stuff, rare)

other mailboxes = sorted archives, stuff i may peruse when it comes in if ive
some time/interest.

works fine.

~~~
andreasklinger
awesome setup!

personally i can't really use desktop clients anymore. it's super weird if you
need to "quickly" check your email somewhere else and all your setup is
different.

~~~
mike-cardwell
I only access my email on trusted devices. All of my trusted devices have IMAP
clients on them. I can see that webmail is useful for people who are willing
to access their email on untrusted devices (a friends computer etc) which wont
have email clients pre-configured, but I'm not one of those people.

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almost
This is very similar to the workflow I use with gmail. I use a slightly
different means to achieve it though, I use Active Inbox
([http://activeinboxhq.com](http://activeinboxhq.com)) which is a plugin for
Gmail. It helps with GTD stuff by giving "Statuses" such as Action, Waiting On
and Some Day to messages (they're just labels underneath but it gives them a
nice UI) and I use it to display my actioned messages next to my inbox via a
feature called Radar.

That's all well and good but so far it's only what the author has done (but
with, IMHO, a nicer and easier to use UI). What Active Inbox does that isn't
possible without a plugin is it adds notes and "next steps" to emails, it's
easiest to explain with a screenshot:

[http://awesomescreenshot.com/08225ii5e9](http://awesomescreenshot.com/08225ii5e9)

Full disclaimer: I have been paid to add features to Active Inbox (including
some of the ones I've mentioned and very cool upcoming keyboard control
thingy) but I was a happy customer before that happened.

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manuelflara
Very cool workflow. I also use Gmail extensively as my primary task management
platform and have a simple workflow that works great for my needs. I wrote
about it here: [http://www.manuelflara.com/ultimate-todo-list-
inbox/](http://www.manuelflara.com/ultimate-todo-list-inbox/)

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kyle_t
Its too bad this actually makes things worse if you are a heavy mobile user.
Since all emails are archived (even those awaiting todo/reply) using this
workflow on mobile now requires quite a few navigation points just to see
these emails.

In my opinion multiple inboxes leaves the screen looking cluttered anyway.

~~~
robbiemitchell
I was thinking the same thing: how will I use email on my phone?

I use Mailbox for iPhone. I wonder whether one could create Gmail filters that
essentially map the Gmail multiple inboxes to custom lists in the Mailbox
mobile app (which looks like "label:[mailbox]-later"). The result would make
it easier to categorize new mail and to find existing mails.

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StevenXC
I've found that I've done pretty well with the default organization of the
Primary/Social/Promotion etc. tabs. Since you can mark any tab as completely
read at once, I just keep my todos unread in my Primary tab. A simple search
for is:unread displays what I need to work on.

~~~
andreasklinger
cool stuff. to be honest i only "read" a fraction of my email. most of the
automatic stuff gets filtered into different "newsletter" labels and i never
mark them read - would also feel weird doing it because i actually never read
them

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LanceJones
Very nice hack, Andreas. I've set it up per your instructions and I will
commit to using it.

One thing... the multiple inbox feature doesn't appear to work on the iPad
Gmail app. My inbox is simply empty... and I don't see the additional inboxes
anywhere. Just an FYI for those who go this route.

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jacalata
You don't need to enable auto-archive if you learned all the keyboard
shortcuts: [ and ] are 'remove from current view and go to next/previous',
which removes the email from the inbox if that's where you process mail. ( or
{ } to explicitly archive from any view)

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jhwhite
I've been on a recent email organization kick. I spent last week setting up
aliases and filters to keep junk out of my inbox.

Basically I set up an alias for each newsletter I subscribe to then went and
either change my email for those accounts or unsubscribed then resubscribed
with the new alias.

Then I created a label for each newsletter/whatever I was expecting and set it
to "Show if unread". Next I created the filter, I put in the "to" email
address of the alias, then set the filter to auto archive and apply the label
for that newsletter.

That way it doesn't pop up in my inbox but if there's an unread message it
does appear in my left hand label list.

Then I can get to it when I want and process it at that time. That helps keeps
important items in my inbox that I can process more quickly.

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nrs26
This is fantastic. I have used the same system for the last 4 years and it is
the single most useful productivity "hack" in my life. The only change I use
is that my reference emails usually go into Evernote.

Kudos for such a useful and comprehensive post!

~~~
andreasklinger
Nice! I like the evernote idea.

What are reference email?

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pan69
I remember a time (2005) when GMail was hailed as the future of easy to use
email. However, I must say, this thing has grown into the most convoluted
thing I've ever worked with and I'm not really sure why this is...

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hisham_hm
Excellent. I could see myself using this (especially nowadays that screens are
big enough).

Before clicking the link I was afraid this wouid be about "Priority Inbox" or
any other way to let Google categorize my email for me, which I don't trust
them to do other than the spam filter.

Lately, however, the constant UI changes are driving me into thinking about
moving from web-based GMail to some other, more stable alternative for reading
email. (Really, I'm even considering adopting a terminal client like mutt. At
least I know _that_ I'll be able to keep using exactly the same way 10 years
from now.)

~~~
andreasklinger
(author here) I have the same angst about interface changes. I am so extremely
dependent on being effective in gmail. If they ever force me to use one of the
new interfaces of Gmail, it will be a new client for me to learn, thus i might
as well learn a completely new client - like eg mutt.

~~~
snogglethorpe
> _new interfaces of Gmail, it will be a new client for me to learn, thus i
> might as well learn a completely new client - like eg mutt_

That seems sort of silly... Various gmail interface changes have annoyed some
people, but they're quite small by comparison with the difference with an
email client like mutt with a _completely_ different model, and not just the
UI model, but mail delivery, storage, backup, and spam-handling, not to
mention the integration of gmail with a vast swath of other software.

Certainly mutt (and all the associated things that go with it) are better-
liked by some people, but it most certainly isn't going to be easier to learn
than new gmail UI for an existing gmail user. Not even close.

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anilshanbhag
Amazing :-) I had a simple question unrelated to post - how is it that there
is no ad shown to you on gmail ? Are you using any extension to remove ads ?

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codebeard
The only thing lacking here is the ability to navigate multiple inbox sections
with the keyboard.

I use a very similar system (in fact the same, just with different stars) and
hitting g + s then using j/k to navigate messages is so much faster than using
a mouse/trackpad. It feels sort of barbaric.

I suppose this view gives me a nice overview, I just wish there were a hotkey
to move from box to box.

~~~
codebeard
Of course, I opened my mouth too soon; A quick google search revealed pressing
the tick (`) navigates from box to box. I'm back, baby!

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kamimeow
I rely a lot on filters & labels, mainly to delete unwanted mails (i rarely
unsubscribe from a newsletter, just add a filter), but also to categorize and
give states to some mails; I don't need more than one big view, and a clean
menu (with hidden useless labels and opts...)

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jgodin
For those interested in trying this, it's worth noting that you'll need to
disable some things like the tabbed inbox.

The step-by-step eventually mentions this, but until you get to that point you
won't see any sign of the multiple inbox UI.

~~~
andreasklinger
(author here)

Absolutely true. I mention at some point. Should i pull this earlier to make
it more clear?

~~~
jgodin
Probably wouldn't hurt to at least point out that you won't see anything
change until you get to the "turn that stuff off" step.

It also took me a little longer than it probably should have to figure out
where "Choose right side layout" was configured.

Thanks for writing up your technique!

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waffl
Is there a benefit to using stars instead of labels? I find the interface for
applying/removing labels far quicker than clicking through the star options
one at a time, and also that the labels are more accessible over mobile.

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mknits
Awesome. Couldn't realize managing Gmail could be so simple and effective.

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Synergyse
This has some nice tips, but seems overly complex. Try using the "Unread
First" inbox, and simply mark email that you need to take action on as Unread,
whether you've replied to it or not.

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ajayjain
Seems Gmail tabs don't work with multiple inboxes, but I've set it up. I guess
I'll have to be more liberal with unsubscribing without emails being sorted
into tabs.

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brandon272
How do you get the todo list on the right side of the screen?

~~~
andreasklinger
Settings > Multiple Inboxes > in the bottom

I added an additional note to the explanations. hope it helps

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elango
Thanks, always wanted my email to be a todo list

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rob22
Very good setup n useful...

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psychotik
Use Mailbox - www.dropbox.com/mailbox

