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.
Don’t drown in email: How to use Gmail more efficiently
51–60 of 63 posts
Re: Don’t drown in email: How to use Gmail more efficiently
#52looks 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…
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.
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.
Re: Don’t drown in email: How to use Gmail more efficiently
#53I 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.
It is a bit frustrating to see the NSA angle in everything these days. Going by the same logic, it is very likely that they are tapping into the backbones, should we then be less enamored with using the internet?
The snooping is a serious problem and has been discussed to death and beyond in various threads.
Re: Don’t drown in email: How to use Gmail more efficiently
#54Its 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.
Re: Don’t drown in email: How to use Gmail more efficiently
#55I'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.
Re: Don’t drown in email: How to use Gmail more efficiently
#56This is really great. Thanks for posting. Another necessary gmail tool is "Boomerang" 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.
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.
Re: Don’t drown in email: How to use Gmail more efficiently
#57The 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.
Re: Don’t drown in email: How to use Gmail more efficiently
#58The 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.
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!
Re: Don’t drown in email: How to use Gmail more efficiently
#59I 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.
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.
Re: Don’t drown in email: How to use Gmail more efficiently
#60Its 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.
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.