Email | Home Office Warrior

I belong to a couple of listservs and one of them had a conversation recently concerning tools such as email and calendars. After the conversation had gone on for part of an afternoon, I offered my take on things. And one of the tools I talked about using was Gmail.

I also briefly mentioned Gcal, Jott, Remember the Milk (RTM) and sync’ing all of the data with each other. Because each of these and others are such an important part of my every day functioning and being productive, I have decided to break them out into a series of post. And the first one we will discuss is Gmail.

First of all, some of what I am going to discuss and the ideas I use are not original to me. There are some huge gurus of Gmail out there. And Steve Rubel is one of them. Some of what I am going to discuss are some of the ideas Steve has posted about.

Gmail to organize your emails:

I get a ton of emails on a daily basis to multiple email addresses. There is no way I could manage this without Gmail and the built in tools it contains. One of the built in features I use the most with Gmail are labels and filters. First, I set up labels for the different type of emails I get. Labels are actually like folders in other email programs or services. For example, I have labels for staff emails, client emails, listserv emails and even one for social media emails. And those are not even all of the ones I use.

To get my emails directed to these labels (folders) I have set filters inside Gmail. Another very important built feature of Gmail. Setting up filters is easy to accomplish with Gmail. You first need to choose a search criteria. You start the process by deciding what email addresses you want to be sent to a label (folder). Than you decide on the action you want it to take. I usually have mine skip the inbox and send it right to the label (folder).

The only emails which go to my inbox are those who don’t get filtered to a label. One key to this is to make sure you keep the emails filtered “marked as unread” so you know how many unread emails are in each label. I also use the process to manage the number of comments I get from my blogs and any “quick contact forms” I get from my blogs. In other words, I have one label marked as “blog management”. And another marked as “contact us form”. You should get the point by now. You can make any label and filter you want which will help you to be more productive and keep track of the emails you get. Oh, and lets not forget about the label I have called “listserv”. All of the listserv emails I get go there so they don’t plug up my main inbox.

Have I mentioned lately that I love Gmail? However, I don’t use Gmail in my browser window. I use a great third party program called Mailplane. Mailplane is for Mac OSX and it is wonderful. You get all of the features and benefits of Gmail in a desktop application. It does cost $24.95 and in my opinion is worth every single penny.

Gmail to organize your data:

Besides using Gmail to organize your emails, you can use it to organize the amount of data and information you deal with on a daily basis. One of the tips I use almost on an hourly basis is “turn Gmail into your personal nerve center from Steve Rubel. Steve provided such a great idea when he suggested you can use Gmail as a massive database. And he is right. If you use Firefox and the Google Toolbar, you can use the send to Gmail function to send items right to Gmail. To do this, you should first set up a secret email address. What I mean by this for example may look like this: grant.griffiths+[secretword]@gmail.com. Keep in mind [secretword] can be anything you want. For example you can call it notebook, data, archive, or whatever you want. The main thing to remember is the +[secretword] acts like a filter. You than set up a label (folder) in Gmail and set up a filter to send all the emails you get with the +[secretword] to that label. I also set the filter to mark these as read since I know what I just sent myself and will view them later.

Because Gmail has the same great search abilities as Google itself, you can search and find anything you have stored in these labels you have set up as database storage.

I also have one of these special +[secretword] Gmail addresses to be a location where I send blog post ideas too. If I am reading items in my browser, I can send a link and an idea to myself as a blog idea for later use. How many times have you been looking for something to blog about. If you use this system, you can search the blog idea database in Gmail and come up with ideas.

Just remember to change the subject line in these emails so they aid in your searching of these labels (folders).

iPhone and Gmail:

What I love about this system is that I can use it with my iPhone too. Gmail works great with the iPhone’s built in mail application. And lets not forget that Google has optimized Gmail for the iPhone with its own iPhone interface Gmail web based service.

Tomorrow, I will discuss how I use Gcal and a couple other select web based applications to manage my events and to-do’s. In the meantime, leave your comments on how you use Gmail to organize your own daily life.

Thanks to Chris Brogan for getting me thinking about taming the email inbox and what I do and could do better.

I use Apple’s Mail program as my main email program. I do use Gmail for listserv emails and for some of our business emails. I like them both as they both enable me to organize the incoming emails in folders, tags and labels.

However, the key was to just start using the built in features I had available and maybe, just maybe I could get control of this monster I had created.

Apple Mail enables you to set up folders and smartfolders. For the folders, I set up three main folders that help more than others. First I set up a folder where I can send emails which involve business and/or client issues. Next, “Archived”. And third, a folder called “Respond to”. I quickly send emails to any of those folders by using a great Mac Mail addon called Mail Act-On.

I also set up folders for “Article Request” as I get request for articles often and needed some way to keep track of them. And a folder called “Blogging” to keep track of items that I may want to blog about or for request for blog post.

My biggest problem with these three folders is that I don’t use them as much as I should. I usually read the email and leave the darn thing in the inbox if I want to archive it. So, my goal this week is to archive those emails I need to look at later.

The next tool I use to organize my emails are Smart Mailboxes within Apple’s Mail. With these folders, I am able to set rules to send emails from certain individuals to certain folders. I don’t do anything but set the rule up and let it work. I have folders from clients of G2 Web Media, individuals within our business who are working on projects, to Jott emails. The emails are there for either searching or reading later. I also have a Smart Mailbox set up for all of the faxes my office either sends or receives. A folder for all of the emails to and from my virtual assistant.

The best thing about using Smart Mailboxes is I don’t have to do anything to use them but set up the initial rule and adding certain addresses to the rule.

Checking the Inbox

This is one area I really struggle with and just don’t know what to do. I have my Mail program set to check email every five minutes. Some will call me crazy for this. But, for me, this is just how I do things. I have been exploring a new service called, AwayFind. AwayFind provides you with an autoreply and way for those who must reach you ASAP to contact you with other methods such as text messages. I will let you know soon on this.

I am just having a hard time giving up the idea of checking email often. I plan to spend some time today going through those emails still in my inbox and either putting them in one of the above mentioned folders or trashing them.

Please leave your comments on how often you check your email and what you do to organize your inbox. Again, if I get at least ten tips, I will post them in a followup post with a link to you and your own blog or Web site.

[Update: And this is way too funny. 12 Rules for Getting a Grip on Massive ProBlogger Email was provided by ProBlogger. Do I dare say great minds think alike?]

Using Gmail to be more Productive — Part 1

Do you have an out of control email inbox?

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