I have come to realize that the trick to managing Gmail correctly is to master both an art and a science. My email system (Gmail) was a BEAST. Imagine 5 years of emails in one inbox with nothing deleted, nothing archived, and everything haphazardly labeled or not at all. My Gmail was a big hot Gmess. I finally couldn’t deal with it anymore, and spent 3 hours going through my account.
Here’s how I cleared up my Gmail email account, revamped my organizational structure, and got clean from the messy inbox addiction. I’ve used a modified version of Dave Allen’s Getting Things Done, and I think it’s this method of managing emails in Gmail works quite well for me.
Create 6 labels:
- 1. To Be Reviewed
- 2. Wait for Action
- Career
- Personal
- Finances
- Reference
The first 2 labels are what I call Master Labels (put a number or an underscore in front so they will always show up first in your Gmail sidebar).
The other 4 labels are what I call Categorical Labels. On a side note, I’ve found that more general labels work better for me. Previously, I’ve had as many as 20+ different labels. But I wouldn’t use them consistently, because there are so many choices to select from. Pretty soon, instead of spending a minute pondering if a resume-related email should be labeled Career, Work, Resume, or Applications, I just threw my hands up and left that email unlabeled and unarchived in my inbox.
Not a good system.
Now, my new and much-improved system is basically this: See an email in the inbox, asks self.
Can I deal with this email in 5 minutes?
- Yes -> Read and/or respond. Then tag with appropriate Categorical Label (for example, a email about a friend’s travel plans would be labeled Personal) then archive.
- No -> Label the email To Be Reviewed. Archive. Go back to To Be Reviewed folder later. Then repeat the process above.
If I am waiting for something (say, a refund confirmation with the customer service department of a web retailer), I’ll tag that email with the Wait For Action label. This means that the email’s issue has not been resolved yet. I’m waiting for someone else to act on a request, or that they owe me additional information. Then I’ll label and archive the email.
The key is to never let the emails pile up (especially not for 5 years….).
Breaking free from the clutter of emails made me feel so… free! Having a clean, empty inbox is quite invigorating. I like it. Managing emails in Gmail doesn’t have to be hard, but it does require a certain degree of discipline. It’s easy to let the system slide… but as long as you don’t let it go for too long, the situation is easily remedied.
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I know the feeling! GTD starts at home…or more accurately with Gmail. Whether or not the clutter-free mentality trickles into the rest of life downwards, a good gmail system helps a lot!
http://bit.ly/1IH23
I’ve used the system described in this Lifehacker post. It’s a little more label intensive, but has a couple of extra benefits.
It uses a labs feature to add more stars, for things like ‘immediate action’, ‘non-immediate action’, ‘dealt with’, ‘someone else is dealing with’, that kind of thing. It also add multiple inboxes to the homepage, to show different categories (like an inbox for things needing action by you only, or something).
Also, the labels it uses are all prefixed by a C/ for context, a R/ for reference, or a P/ for project (which I think is GTD lingo?). Anyway, if you ever use a mail client, this rocks too by letting you collapse them into folders for C, R or P, rather than have them all over the place.
Ramble Ramble. A geeky, email-management wet dream. Anyway, hope that helps someone!
G
Great tips! I was just avoiding this task because I wasn’t sure where to start.
Thanks for the reminder…I did a REALLY good job of getting my inbox down to one single page last year, and then forgot that I was cleansing. I’m only up to 104 messages (51 unread, many of which have been read but I marked them unread for reason I don’t remember), but I want to be down to 0! I’m trying to be better about keeping things in my inbox that I want to “save” or “remember” – that’s what bookmarks (and labels) are for!
So yeah, thanks for the reminder
GENIUS!! Thank you I SO need to do this. My gmail inbox is driving me crazy.
I have 6600 unread messages….I am afraid of even starting.
When i abandoned my Yahoo email a couple of years ago and started using Gmail, I began to actively file and delete whatever email I receive. I even keep 3 email accounts – my personal account, an account I use for blogs, newsletters, etc & one that I use for shopping. I am able to have them all go into one mailbox. It keeps me organized.