First off, this isn't a post on becoming a Gmail Ninja, Gmail Mr. Kesuke Miyagi, Gmail Kamikazi Fighter, or Gmail whatever the kids are saying these days, because this history nerd refuses to sully the good names of people and groups in history by equating them to my ability to finally be able to respond to an email in under a week.
Second off, in this post, I'm taking the liberty of assuming that you've already set up things like filters and labels in Gmail. If you haven't, well, you should. Also, feel free to let me know in the comments and I can backtrack and cover that as well. Or I can move forward and cover some fancier tips. Whichever.
Third off, thanks to Natalia Sylvester and Marian Schembari for their idea and encouragement to write this particular post. It grew out of a Twitter conversation that consisted of "OMGZ! EMAIL OVERLOAD!"
Which brings me to the actual point, my email situation was...not good. I could never find what I needed, I'd forget to respond to emails I read, and I could never tell the difference between "emails to read," "emails that should be moved to my task list," "emails to respond to" and well, you get the idea.
I started off by using Gmail stars, which was helpful, but while I could glance and immediately tell that SOMETHING had to be done with the email, Lord only knew what. I tried just re-marking things un-read and them moving them to folders, but then I'd forget about them and I hated all the extraneous clutter of unread labels.
Then I tried Postbox-which worked fairly well except for 2 things:
- It's black and white. I color-code everything that can possibly be color-coded. I'm super visual and like being able to look at something and immediately know what it is. I was probably the only kid in elementary school who had one of those 6-packs of highlighters.
- While you can mark things as "to-do's," I had a similar problem that I did with Google Stars, although it wasn't as severe.
I was making do with Postbox, which was kinda-sorta-almost-but-not really working, when I came across something in my feed reader, and I ended up clicking a few links and it led me to this older gem by Lifehacker: "Turn Gmail Into Your Ultimate GTD Inbox." Normally, I wouldn't have clicked on it, because while GTD has some really good points, implementing it gives me anxiety attacks, but I was on a clicking spree.
I was skimming through when I saw the most delightful email picture ever.
Color-coding! And visual separation! IT'S EMAIL HOW MY BRAIN WORKS!
So I scrolled back up, read the entire post, then figured out how to better implement it for myself and freelancers.
So, here's another example and a step-by-step of how I implemented something very similar.
Step 1:
Login to Gmail and click on that little green flask thing in the upper right hand corner.
- Move Icon Column: "Move the column containing the attachment and other icons over to the left hand side to make it more noticeable."
- Multiple Inboxes: "Add extra lists of emails in your inbox to see even more important email at once. The new lists of threads can be labels, your starred messages, drafts or any search you want, configurable under Settings."
- Quick Links: "Adds a box to the left column that gives you 1-click access to any bookmarkable URL in [Your Email Account]. You can use it for saving frequent searches, important individual messages, and more."
- SuperStars: "Adds additional star icons. After enabling this feature:
(1) Go to the "General" Settings page to choose which superstars you wish to use.
(2) Use either the keyboard shortcut ('s') or click to rotate through your selected superstars.
(3) Use the search operator "has:" to find all messages with your superstar (e.g. "has:red-bang", "has:blue-star"). Learn the name of a superstar by hovering over its image in the "General" Settings page."
Step 2:
Head over to the "Settings" tab in Gmail, click on general, and scroll down to SuperStars. Start brainstorming about how you would categorize different labels and what type of SuperStar you would give them.
For example, the ones I use are:
- Red Bang: EMERGENCY. This one is to be used sparingly. Like, only if I get an important email and I'm literally closing my laptop as I'm out the door. It's mainly so I remember when I open the laptop back up to respond IMMEDIATELY.
- Yellow Bang: Respond To. This one is pretty self-explanatory-any emails that aren't tasks, but need a response.
- Orange Guillemet: Add to Task List. Another pretty self-explanatory one. This is for those emails that are tasks and really shouldn't just be chilling in your inbox.
- Purple Question Mark: Ask for More Info. Every get one of those emails that raises more questions than it answers? Yea, those get this label.
- Orange Star: Social Media. I use Nutshell mail to catch up on Facebook and LinkedIn statuses, along with seeing if there was any good tweets that I missed when offline. I also have a few LinkedIn and Brazen Careerist groups send me notifications. Anything like that-that I actually want and have time to respond to-gets an orange star.
- Blue Star: To Read. This one is for newsletters I want to read, ebooks that come my way, and emails from my mom. Anything that I would like to look at eventually, but isn't directly work-related.
- Blue Info: Reference. Any email that includes a contract, a login/password, or a document that I have to frequently reference back to gets one of these. Anytime someone shares a Google Doc with me, that notification gets one too.
- Green Star: . Completed, but uninvoiced tasks. Those tasks to add to the task list that I mentioned earlier? After I complete them, but before I invoice them (usually I'm waiting on final approval), I give it a Green Star. It makes it easier for me when I have to do my invoicing.
Step 3:
Go through EVERYTHING in your email inbox and label it with your new SuperStar System from Step 2. Yes, it will be a pain in the ass. Yes, it might cause you to start trolling your Spam Folder to find some Valium. Trust me-it's worth it.
Step 4:
Do a search for all the SuperStars, you're using, then save the search as a quick link. You might want to also save some other frequently searched things such as "Client Name" or "has:attachments."
Example:
Search Term: has:yellowbang
Head over to the Quick Link widget, click "Add Quick Link," name it, and save it.
Now, all your Superstars and any frequently used search terms are all in your easily-accessible Quick Link widget box. YAY!
Step 5:
Set up your multiple inboxes.
- Head back over to settings.
- Click on the Multiple Inboxes Tab.
- Change each pane to what you want it to be. You can use a label, a search, term, whatever.
- Choose the maximum amount of email you want to see per pane.
- Decide where to position the panes. You can have them above, below, or to the right of your main inbox.
Personal my multiple inbox set-up looks like this:
And now you're all set! You have a nice, pretty inbox that allows you to tell at a glance exactly what you have to do with what email. The emails you need to follow up with are still in view so you don't forget about them, but not in your way. You have quick access to all your searches. You are go to go!
If you want even further color-coding refinement, you can add labels to different emails. For example, I'll add labels (color-coded of course) like "client," "label," "potential job" to the email when I add the Superstar, so I can even tell WHAT the email is in addition to what to do with it.
And of course, I'll provide you with further information and references: