Master your email game with these Gmail tips for maximum productivity.
It's important that you learn to balance your email game. Email is a great means to an end, but make sure you don't work in your inbox all day (unless you work in customer support). Here are my tips that saved me loads of time and make me master email management.
To get to Inbox Zero I use the Getting Things Done methodology. Read the full article here
What is it?
Not-Actionable?
Actionable?
Defer it
The first step is to set up your Gmail for success.
Email can be a distraction if you live in your inbox all day. Minimising distractions and making an impact is more important than being efficient at email management. Schedule 2-3 times a day when you check your email. It's more efficient to batch email this way. Read more about how to time-blocking your work.
Google has the best search engine and it's embedded in Gmail. These are the commands to quickly find those emails"
This is the 'normal' search most people use.
Subject:training
If you know a word that was in the subject line, use subject:
From:elon@tesla.com (or a person if they're in your Google Contacts)
Helpful if you know you got an email from Elon, but not sure what the topic was.
To:me
Was it directed to you or were you in cc?
cc:me
Combine the commands to create super niche search query
has:attachment
If you're looking for a file, use attachment or even more specific
file:pdf
Use the search queries in filters and labels as well. Here's how to do that.
Filters are Gmail automation that trigger actions, like skipping the inbox or adding a label. These actions are possible:
Google has a neat trick. Everything after "+ is disregarded by Gmail, but not by 'other' databases.
Use this to sign-up for the newsletter of a competitor or to get that 10% discount again (sorry email agencies)
It's also a great way to see who sold your email address to spammers. If you receive spam on ewoud+klm@gmail.com, you know KLM was the company that sold the data or had a leak (assuming I've added the name of each company I give my emailaddress)