Inbox Heaven: The Ultimate Email Setup
by Nick Cernis | 19 February 2008
I had a dream.
A dream that email could be fun again. A dream that, instead of wrestling with my inbox every day, we could share the same bus and get along just fine.
Today that dream is realised and I’m going to share it with you. It won’t change the face of the planet or answer the Eternal Question (”have you seen my car keys?”), but it might just save you several hours a week.
The Quest For Inbox Heaven
About two years ago I was up to my nostrils in email and I decided that enough was enough. I made a blueprint for Inbox Heaven.
The perfect email setup should let me:
1) Check all my email accounts in one place.
2) Easily archive or delete email.
3) Flag actionable mail but keep it out of my inbox.
4) Access email from my mobile without loss of functionality.
5) Not worry about how much it’s costing.
6) Feel good about email again.
It sounded like a tall order.
The Experiments Began
I spent nearly two years experimenting. I’ve used .Mac mail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, Squirrel Mail, and some exotic stuff that would sound more at home on a Russian Space Orbiter (Laszlo Mail anyone?).
I’ve tweaked desktop mail apps like Thunderbird and Apple’s Mail.app with all manner of widgets. I’ve tried 3 different versions of Outlook together with one version of Entourage, which actually made me break down and cry like a baby.
Shortly after what I now refer to as the Great Entourage Blackout of 2006, I sat down and had a chocolate Hobnob. Then it all made sense.
Introducing Inbox Heaven: One Inbox For Life
By the second year of messing around with email, I had already tried the right software. I just hadn’t used it the right way.
Inbox Heaven is a combination of two things:
1) Really smart use of a Gmail account
2) The 5 Inbox Heaven Rules
Your Silly Questions Answered
First, I’ll answer some quick questions. Yes — you, in the front row?
Q: But Nick, I’m already using Gmail!
A: That’s not a question, but great! Well done! Is your inbox always empty? Is it empty right now? No? You can almost certainly learn something from me, then. If you’re a Gmail master, read on anyway. You come to Put Things Off to avoid doing actual work under the guise of being productive, don’t you? Don’t blow your own cover now.
Q: But Nick, what if I don’t have a Gmail account?
A: You’ll need one. Sign up here.
Q: But Nick, I’ve heard Gmail is evil and will steal my biscuits?
A: Not true, my friend. Let me tell you the Truth about Google.
An Aside: The Truth About Google
Just because Google’s logo looks like it was designed by a committee of clowns, it doesn’t make it evil. Its motto is “don’t be evil”, for goodness sake! It would look pretty stupid if it turned out to be using humankind’s frantic search for cheap iPhones to power its coffee machines, wouldn’t it?
Gmail is free, has one of the best spam protection setups in the world, and I’m telling you today: if you use it the way I’m about to teach you, it’s the single best email productivity system in existence.
Google’s Dark Secret
Who cares if Google is smuggling gremlins to a secret bunker in order to launch a subterranean attack and take over the Earth in 2143? Not me! I’ll still be smiling when they arrive at my doorstep, happy in the knowledge that — yes — the gremlins might have come for my Hobnobs, the true source of all power, but at least I’ve got Gmail.
Let’s Get On With It. Please follow along with me. This isn’t going to mess anything up, so if you don’t like Inbox Heaven after a couple of weeks, you can still go back to whatever crappy system you were using before.
Setting Up Inbox Heaven
Before we get to the rules, let’s set everything up so it’s working smoothly.
Step 1: Get A Gmail Account
The whole system only works with Gmail, using online webmail access only. You will need a Gmail account. (Sign up here.) Don’t try to adapt your existing desktop mail client or webmail system to use Inbox Heaven. It won’t work. You need Gmail, and you need to be using it in your browser (NOT with a desktop mail client). Trust me!
If you feel let down by this step or were expecting some kind of undiscovered golden mail application from Zenland, I’m sorry, but you’ll thank me later. (Besides, everyone knows Zenland is empty, smarty pants!)
Step 2: Point ALL Your Email At Gmail
This is really, really important. I can’t stress it enough — if you skip this step, Inbox Heaven won’t work for you.
We’re going to get Gmail to check ALL of your email accounts. Yes, even the one you use at weekends for your other life. Yes, even your work email. And the one you set up just for eBay. And the one for all your fan mail and love letters. Sheesh! How many do you have, anyway? It doesn’t matter. Just bin the ones you don’t need and point the rest at Gmail.
How To Point All Your Email At Gmail
Have no fear! It’s really simple.
First set up sending: We’re going to register all your email accounts with Gmail so that you can send email from your other addresses as well as your Gmail one. When we’re done, people won’t even know you’ve sent it from Gmail*. Not that you should be shy about that, of course.
Sending email from other accounts
a) Login to your Gmail account.
b) Click “settings” in the top right.
c) Click the “accounts” tab.
d) Under “Send mail as:” click “add another email address”.
e) Run through the step-by-step guide that pops up.
f) Repeat for all your accounts.
g) I recommend changing the “when I receive a message to one of my addresses” radio button to: “reply from the same address the message was sent to”.
(*Update: Barry left a comment below to let me know that, when a recipient is using Outlook, they may see your Gmail address next to your business one. If this bothers you, be sure to check my reply.)
Next set up receiving: Now we’ll tell Gmail to check all the accounts you’ve just set up to send from. You don’t even have to forward your mail from those other accounts. Gmail can just check them for you. It does this automatically every 10 minutes.
Receiving email from other accounts
a) Login to your Gmail account.
b) Click “settings” in the top right.
c) Click the “accounts” tab.
d) Under “Get mail from other accounts” click “add another mail account”.
e) Run through the step-by-step guide that pops up
f) Repeat for all your accounts.
(Update 2: Libby and Jason note that receiving from Hotmail accounts doesn’t work. There are a couple of workarounds. See my response to Jason in the comments if you’re a Hotmail user who’s itching to switch. Diane also wrote in to mention that those with yahoo.com unpaid accounts might have trouble. I’ve found a fix, here.)
That’s Step 2 done! You can now send and receive all your email from Gmail.
Step 3: Turn Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts On
You don’t have to do this if you’re only happy being fairly productive, but if you want to be really get cooking in Inbox Heaven, you’ll need to turn Gmail keyboard shortcuts on. (Hint: it’s the third option down on your “settings” page.)
Step 4: Have a Clean Up
By now most of what you need is sorted and in place. If you’ve setup Gmail to check your other accounts like I’ve told you to do, or if you’re an existing Gmail user, you’ll probably now have an inbox full of email.
Once you’ve read this article, the first thing you should do is have a good clean up to get that inbox empty. If that means spending 4 hours clearing 1043 emails, then just do it. Find that time somewhere so that you’ll be able to continue winning the battle against your inbox for good.
Step 5: Banish Your Old Mail Application
Remove it from from your Mac’s dock or PC’s shortcut bar. If you use webmail from some other provider, stop using it. We won’t be needing you anymore, lousy unproductive systems of yesteryear!
You’ll be accessing Gmail and composing email from your web browser or phone only from now on — trust me, it works really well.
Step 6: Install Google Notifier and Gmail for Mobile
These are the two apps that make the Gmail experience complete. Of the two, the only one I insist you install is Google Notifier. If you’re not using Notifier, you’re not using my system, so don’t complain to me when it doesn’t work for you.
Get it here, install it, login using your details, and then tweak the preferences as follows:
a) On the Account tab in the preferences, make sure “Start Google Notifier at Login” is checked.
b) On the Gmail tab, make sure the “Compose mail in:” drop down says “Gmail”.
I also recommend you install Gmail on your mobile phone.
That’s it! Now you’re all set up.
The Inbox Heaven Rules
These rules are a combination of my own experience using and refining Inbox Heaven, with inspiration from Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero presentation, which was in turn sparked off by David Allen’s Getting Things Done.
I’d also like to acknowledge that I’m not the first person to suggest using a Gmail account as your only Inbox — I’m just the first to put all the steps you need on one page, add a picture of a gremlin, and glue it all together with some concrete rules to keep you on track.
The 5 Rules
Rule 1) Delete as much as you can. If in doubt, delete it.
Rule 2) If it needs action within two weeks, star and archive it.
Rule 3) Archive anything else that you’ll need after two weeks.
Rule 4) Twice a day, take action on all your starred items.
Rule 5) Delete, archive, or star-and-archive every email as it comes in.
Important Points
1. Starred email is your to-do list. The starred list you check twice a day (or more if you like) is a to-do list for your inbox. It should only contain items that are actionable — they need a reply or a follow-up call or some other input from you.
2. Your inbox should stay empty. Forever. If you find your inbox is backing up with email, you’re doing something wrong. Once you’ve scanned an email, you should be doing something with it! Don’t leave it in your inbox to sort out later.
3. Any email that needs starring must also be archived! This is really important. Actioning email is a two-step process. You must first star it. Then you must click the archive button. This removes it from your inbox and places it in your starred “to-do list”.
4. Step away from the reply button! All you’re doing is acting as an email filing monkey. You’re just deleting email or marking it as actionable by starring and archiving it. Unless you can shoot off a reply very quickly with just a few sentences, only reply to email when you review your starred items.
5. When I say file all email as soon as it comes in, relax. You don’t have to literally jump on every email as soon as you see it pop up in Google Notifier. (You did install that, right?) You just need to keep beating it with a stick to keep it in check.
6. Learn and use the keyboard shortcuts. This will make Inbox Heaven even better for you. Here’s a cheat sheet from evhead to help.
7. Don’t succumb to labellitis Use labels sparingly. If you label all your email as it comes in, it will hinder more than it helps. The majority of my email is never labelled. I only attach labels to email that I need to quickly scan as one list (like customers with unpaid invoices).
8. Use your labels like folders. When you do label an email, use a hierarchical structure. The way I use labels is to imagine them as folders, separated by a hyphen. For example, I use the initials “PTO” for important Put Things Off email, then have a list of “subfolders” separated by a hyphen. For example, I currently have “PTO-advertisers”, “PTO-book”, and “PTO-guestposts” amongst my labels.
I have the same for other areas — each one gets an initial for the project and a subfolder separated by a hyphen. Try it — it makes your labels really easy to scan.
9. Be ruthless. Be hard on your email. Chances are high that you can probably delete most of what you receive. If you’re wavering, it’s OK to hit archive instead of delete, but err on the side of destruction if you’re unsure.
10. Stick with browser-based email only. Don’t go back to your desktop email client if you once used one. Weaning yourself off it will feel odd at first, but keep trying. Remove all shortcuts to your mail application from your desktop. Inbox Heaven’s rule of separating your inbox from your desktop by handling email only in your browser is a key step towards making you more productive.
11. If you can, action email before you even open it. Try to make a decision on email before you’ve even read it. Gmail writes the first line of an email next to the subject, right there in your inbox, so you can often make snappy decisions about what to do with incoming mail.
12. To compose an email quickly, use the Google Notifier shortcut. To compose an email, just click on the notifier icon, and click “Compose Mail”. A new window or tab will open in your default browser.
13. Don’t forget to unstar email when you’ve dealt with it! Finally, don’t forget to unstar email when you’ve actioned it. There’s a big button at the top of starred email that says “Remove Star”. Use it! Your starred email should only contain email that requires further action from you.
Why It Works
I’ve been using Inbox Heaven for a while now, and it really works. It works for several reasons:
1) Gmail was designed with productivity in mind. All credit goes to the Gmail team at Google. Their web interface was designed to process and action email quickly. When you use it properly with the rules I’ve given you, it really works.
2) Removing email from your desktop altogether creates a better working environment. Email belongs in your browser and away from the desktop. Enough said.
3) Dealing with email as it comes in keeps your inbox empty forever. While other email systems leave email in your inbox and star only the three most important items or file them away into complex sub-folders, Inbox Heaven lets you keep a simple list of actionable email.
4) The starring system works excellently as an email to-do list. Remember the rule: if it needs action within 2 weeks, star it and archive it.
5) It’s relatively simple. You really don’t need a complex folder hierarchy of actionable items to be productive with email. Just one starred list of actionable items you can refer to.
6) Keyboard shortcuts work much better than drag-dropping. Forget ajaxified supa-dupa drag it here and drop it there style interfaces. They look nice and are great to play with, but for processing email quickly, nothing beats the keyboard. So turn on the keyboard shortcuts and learn them.
7) It works from anywhere. Since you’re no longer tied to a mail application, you will feel at home with Gmail via the web interface from wherever you are. And the mobile Gmail application is just as powerful as their browser-based version too.
What You Should Do Now
If you haven’t been following along, scroll back up and give it a go. Seriously — it will make you fall in love with email again!
Let Me Know How It Goes
I’d love to hear from people who’ve converted to Inbox Heaven — once you’ve used it for a couple of weeks, pop back and leave a comment below. If you’ve got some other tips, feel free to shout up!
19 Feb 08
13:02
Jay F.H.
I have about 12 email addresses all pointed to one Gmail account with the ability to “send mail as” for each address.
Man I love the Goog.
19 Feb 08
13:02
Nick Cernis
Twelve! That’s a scary amount. What sort of dark alternative lives are you hiding, Jay? :) No, wait — I’m not sure I want to know!
19 Feb 08
13:02
Jay F.H.
Let’s just say if I accidentally put “Batman” in that Name box up above, it wouldn’t be far off.
…actually I just like to create a new Gmail address for each of the sites I maintain. Sounds strange, but it actually makes the organization easier for me.
19 Feb 08
13:02
James Chartrand - Men with Pens
I use your method, Nick, and it works. Living proof and testimonials and all that stuff. Gmail *rocks* if you use it properly and to its fullest potential.
I’ll add a tip for Firefox users - go get the Signature plugin. From anywhere in your email, one right click lets you select the best signature for the email address you’re using for your reply.
Now, the only thing that’s missing on Gmail is the ability to have a signature that rocks with a little bit of bling. Any ideas, Nick?
19 Feb 08
13:02
Yaili
Nice post, but:
1. What should I do with the hundreds of archived emails I have (and need) in Outlook right now?
2. And what if I need to go back to some email for reference material, information on a project, or some other detail, and I don’t have internet at the moment?
These are the 2 points I’m most curious about.
19 Feb 08
14:02
Nick Cernis
@Jay: That makes sense. I’d not thought of using a single Gmail account in that way to check other Gmail accounts. Good plan!
@James: Another Gmail convert! You’re all crawling out of the network at last. Thanks for the Signature plugin tip. It was all that was missing for me! The experience is now complete. The plugin is here: Signature Plugin for Firefox
@Yaili: Migrating from Outlook will be a gradual process if you’ve got hundreds of archived emails. When I migrated to web-based Gmail from Mail.app, I would occassionally have to fire up Mail to retrieve some information, but over time, I used the old archive less and less.
Just start using web-based Gmail today, and treat Outlook as a library of your more dusty email. Disconnect it from the net so it’s no longer checking email when you fire it up and use it for reference only.
Re: referring to email without a ‘net connection. I can honestly say it’s never been a problem for me. I print out or make notes from any emails I need whenever I go to a meeting. I also have Gmail Mobile on my phone — you can access archived and starred email from it too, and search through the lot. It’s really very powerful.
To sum up: you’ll probably find connectivity isn’t a problem. Invest in the best local and mobile internet connections you can right now. If you work on the web, you owe it to yourself to have a cheap high-speed connection that’s always on, wherever you are.
As internet connectivity becomes even more universal, this will become less of a problem too. Thanks for chiming in and let us all know how it goes.
19 Feb 08
14:02
Yaili
Yeah, I guess you’re right. I just bought a shiny new iPod touch that integrates smoothly with Gmail too. I just think the idea of having all our reference material stored in a virtual mailbox is still a strange concept for some of us to grasp (like having my files in G Docs).
19 Feb 08
14:02
Jay F.H.
Lifehacker offer a really awesome Firefox extension that I believe also includes adding signatures. It’s called Better Gmail 2.
19 Feb 08
14:02
James Chartrand - Men with Pens
@ Jay - Yeah, that’s a good one too. Unfortunately, it did my Gmail more harm than good when Gmail started frigging with the new and old version. I might test it out again, though, surely it works better now.
But no, I don’t think it includes adding signatures in the way that Signature does.
19 Feb 08
14:02
Jay F.H.
@James Yeah, you’re right. It doesn’t do the Sig. thing, but it does work beautifully with the new Gmail version.
19 Feb 08
14:02
Mich
Hate to spoil the fun, but how long does Google take to catch up? Granted, I just moved my e-mail accounts over this morning, but Google keeps showing me old messages as new. Then I went to check my e-mail by (gasp) actually logging into AOL and I find that I have new messages waiting. What’s the deal?
19 Feb 08
15:02
James Chartrand - Men with Pens
Gmail is very rapid, actually. We’ve tested it to see the lapse in time, and if it doesn’t arrive in seconds on a high-speed internet, then there is something wrong.
Keep in mind that Gmail is often not to blame. There are many PCs that have conflicting settings, plugins, addons and whatnot that affect other issues. For a while, my Gmail was absolute crap (right around the old version/new version time) and I was cursing them up and down.
A month later when I finally decided that I couldn’t work this way, I wiped my computer clean of plugins and addons and certain programs. The culprit? Not Gmail at all. Some innocent little THING screwed up my world.
19 Feb 08
15:02
Nick Cernis
@Yaili: I’ve not used the iPhone Gmail offering. Does it let you star email from the application? That would be pretty much essential for me. If not, I guess you could always use the web interface via Safari.
@Jay & James: I’ve used Better Gmail 2 and experienced some odd rendering quirks and crashes, but perhaps it’s better now. I’ll give it another shot. The Signatures plug-in is working nicely though.
@Mich: Gmail checks your other accounts every 10 minutes. (If you go the the accounts tab on your preferences page, you can show a history of retrieved messages by clicking “view history” next to the relevant account. You can also force it to check ahead of the 10 minute cycle by clicking “check mail now”.)
And yes, you might find the first time it checks your AOL inbox that some read mail will be marked as unread. Just deal with it in Gmail — once it’s synced again the second time all should be well. Sadly I don’t have an AOL account — let me know if you have any problems.
19 Feb 08
16:02
Joanna Young
This is the funniest account of how to manage e-mail that I’ve ever read - and therefore the one I’m most likely to try and use :-)
I am still a bit worried that they might get the biscuits though…
I got put off the thought of gmail after I read about David Airey’s hacking saga
http://www.davidairey.co.uk/google-gmail-security-hijack/
Does your route to inbox heaven get us round this potential risk?
Joanna
19 Feb 08
16:02
Nick Cernis
Thanks Joanna. The security hijack thing scared me too, but it’s now been fixed with some help from the Gmail community. Details here: Gmail vulnerability fixed.
Don’t worry about your biscuits. Just keep them in a locked tin labelled, “not biscuits”. It fools the gremlins every time.
19 Feb 08
17:02
Nathaniel Scott
Great tips here. I was surprised to see how closely I was to the plan already. The only thing, I think I suffer from labelitis. Scheduling a dr. apt now. I’m going to give your suggestions a try.
I use a lot of filters. I don’t remember reading about that. Would you recommend them? What i do is filter it so it is automatically archived and labeled when it comes in. That way my inbox stays empty almost all the time. And all the related emails are grouped already when i go to deal with them.
19 Feb 08
17:02
Sterling Okura | bizlift
@Nick - Good stuff. Laughing and enjoying a clever article on productivity is sooo much more entertaining than actually being productive.
I currently use most of the steps and have rules that auto label to sort by client. I like the idea of hierarchal labels with the dash. And starring before archiving for a to-do is a good idea. I’m off to tidy up my inbox.
p.s. what is a choclate hobnob?
@James - I use a greasemonkey plugin for the bling sig. If anyone knows of a more elegant solution please share.
http://blankcanvasweb.com/gmail2_html_sigs/
19 Feb 08
18:02
Nick Cernis
@Nathaniel - thanks! Filters are great — I use them too, but they’re not an essential part of Inbox Heaven. It’s very easy to get carried away; you can quickly spend most of your evenings thinking of new filters to apply to incoming mail. Few of them are foolproof, and there will always be something that slips through the net.
That’s why I concentrate on teaching people to clear out their inbox in an easy way, rather than fiddling with their settings and tinkering away. Automating the crap out of everything is great, but it’s like fighting a never-ending battle! You constantly have to think of new filters to automate every new case that comes your way. You might as well just file stuff yourself!
@Sterling - Thanks, man! Happy tidying. I can’t believe you haven’t experience the sweet ecstasy that is the chocolate Hobnob! I tell you, if I didn’t stand a good chance of getting locked up for posting a packet of what, in my opinion, should be reclassified from “biscuity snack” to “Class A drug”, I’d be off to the post office in a snap.
Image the softest, smoothest, oatiest biscuit you can dream of layered with a generous crust of milk chocolate. In England, if you’re common, you dip them in your tea. Mmmm, heaven!
I became blinded by sadness when they announced that they were to be discontinued but, thank goodness, it was a false alarm! (Read the gripping story and see a photo here: A Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down.)
19 Feb 08
18:02
James Chartrand - Men with Pens
I agree - don’t get carried away with labels and filters. I thought they were the greatest thing, wasted a whole day color coding all my labels, and lived happily for all of… three months. Now I have Harry going through my email to reduce the 60 labels that I have so I can actually find something.
More is not less.
@ Nick - Ikea’s oatmeal-chocolate sandwich cookie. Crispy, sweet, good. And I live nowhere near Ikea. It’s sad. Really it is.
19 Feb 08
18:02
Nick Cernis
James - exactly! Over-use labels and you’ll have Inbox Haystack instead of Inbox Heaven.
Ikea do biscuits now? Do they come pre-assembled?*
*Yes, it’s a cheap gag, but someone had to say it.
19 Feb 08
18:02
Yaili
Of course this little wonder allows us to star emails! :)
It can be done either via the built-in mail app or Safari, but the app is much better.
19 Feb 08
18:02
Nick Cernis
Drat. That makes me want an iPhone! I really don’t need one though - I’m holding out for a phone that will run Android!
19 Feb 08
19:02
Barry
“When we’re done, people won’t even know you’ve sent it from Gmail.”
Is this true? I tried exactly this approach and all of the messages I sent show up to Outlook users as “…sent on behalf of…”. Now we all know that Outlook really is the work of the devil, but bearing in mind it’s used by the majority of the business community (i.e. my clients), this really makes this approach a bit of a no no for me :-(
If I’ve got it wrong, let me know because I’d love to work this way!
19 Feb 08
20:02
Shannon
Great article! Does anyone know if there is a way to export emails or ‘conversations’ to text documents from Gmail? My present workflow is to organize email to project specific folders, then archive messages to a project folder when the project is complete. I like to keep a record of the client correspondence. I wasn’t able to find anything to support this after I had a quick look through the Gmail interface. Thoughts? Solutions?
Cheers!
19 Feb 08
20:02
James Chartrand - Men with Pens
@ Shannon - Exporting can’t be done. But there is a nice little trick…
Go into any email. Right click. Choose Save Page As and then select .txt file.
Want another? Open an email, go to Print and then when the print window opens, choose Print to PDF from the dropdown of available printers.
You can even zip those PDFs when you’re done for better file storage. :)
19 Feb 08
21:02
Jason
Thanks for the tips Nick … already trying my best to incorporate much of this, but always good to have encouragement. Sadly, it doesn’t work perfectly for all email accounts. Hotmail uses HTTP access (I know, there are way more reasons than that to ditch Hotmail, but for the moment I haven’t gathered the strength to do the mass change of address email on that account).
The other one I can’t do much about is my university email address. It is set up as an IMAP account, which Gmail can’t (yet) handle properly. If I could access other IMAP accounts in Gmail, I’d be golden. Anyone have any tips for that?
Incidentally, if people are out there who would like to archive old Outlook-bound email messages to Gmail, I have found a quick way. Set up Outlook to access Gmail via IMAP (read the online tips on how to do this). This is only temporary, Gmail is way better online. Once Outlook has synced with your Gmail account, you can simply move your messages into whichever Gmail “folder” (Outlook sees labels as folders) you wish, using the Outlook “Move” command. This is fairly quick, and has the added advantage of retaining the original From: and To: information, rather than forwarding the mail to yourself.
19 Feb 08
21:02
Bas
Thanks for this useful post! I just finished cleaning up my inbox and it already feels like I am on the stairway to Inbox Heaven. :)
Just a tip regarding multiple signatures for Opera users (the Firefox crowd already has the plugin): you can create notes (Ctrl Alt E, or open the panel) and insert them into any form by right-clicking and selecting the note from Insert note.
19 Feb 08
22:02
berry
have a look at http://gmailnotifier.net
19 Feb 08
22:02
Joshua Hughes
There’s nothing quite like a chocolate Hobnob ;-)
19 Feb 08
23:02
Karen Swim
OMG, I think I may love you! Thanks to Joanna Young for stumbling this post. I had just opened a gmail account last week and now is it possible that you have unlocked the mystery that I have sought for so long? Have you cured the clutter that chokes my productivity? I have taken the challenge and will dutifully report back. Thank you for putting it all in one place. The grammy goes to……
Very gratefully, Karen Swim (at gmail of course!)
20 Feb 08
02:02
libby
hello. Nick, or anyone, gmail is having issue connecting with hotmail to transfer my inbox. Any suggestions as to why? (I apologize if it was mentioned in the plethora of comments to this post, I am not able to read through them right now…)
thanks.
20 Feb 08
02:02
Skellie
I’m glad you’ve found a system that works for you Nick. Speaking from the perspective of someone who gets quite a bit of email, I just want to flag one thing to be wary of:
Dealing with email as soon as it comes in works only if you don’t get a lot of email. If you get a lot of email, I’ve found the system to be unsustainable. If you’re constantly being interrupted by having to deal with email it becomes very difficult to focus on one particular task for long enough to become strongly focused. And while it’s technically possible to resist the temptation of the blue email icon until you’re done, I found it incredibly hard to do so. The only solution that worked for me was to uninstall Gmail notifier and start processing emails once or twice a day.
As you start to get more and more emails I’d be interested to see if you make some changes to the system, but if it works for you at the moment, that’s great. I’m just flagging something to watch out for.
20 Feb 08
02:02
The Cubicle Guy
That’s a good email solution. Already use gmail for all personal uses. Only use work mail for work stuff.
I don’t worry much about the gmail hacks, ‘coz I don’t really leave my self logged in. I have GTalk which notifies me of new email and allows to check it there but otherwise, the browser is logged out.
Back to the topic, Nick, good workflow.
Should help cut down on email time for a lot of people. :)
20 Feb 08
10:02
Nick Cernis
Thanks for the great response all! Here goes:
@Barry: My apologies! I wasn’t aware of Outlook’s “sent on behalf of” quirk. The problem appears to be with Microsoft’s incorrect handling of mail headers as a pose to Gmail. There are two workarounds I can think of:
a) Use Gmail under your own business domain. Info here: Gmail for business
b) Sign up for another Gmail account using your business domain as the username. For example, if you send email from a business account at “test.com”, you could sign up for a gmail account called “test” or “test.com”. You can then use that as your primary account, and set it up to check personal gmail accounts. It’s not ideal, but it’s a quick workaround that will reduce the effect of having your gmail username appear in business email.
Personally it doesn’t bother me — I’ve been sending email via gmail from my business domain to Outlook users for over a year. None of them have mentioned it to me, and I’ve not lost any business! I’ll update the article to link to this comment - thanks for mentioning it.
@Shannon & James — It’s a good question Shannon, and a great tip James. Thanks for adding it.
@Jason — thanks for the Outlook migration tip. That’s sure to help some folks out. Lifehacker has a tip about checking Hotmail accounts from Gmail using the Notifier that berry linked to. You can also look into Hotmail forwarding.
Are you sure your University doesn’t also support POP? It’s unusual for IMAP setups not to include it. I would recommend asking them if you haven’t already.
@Bas — Thanks for the Opera tip. I’m a big Opera fan.
@Joshua — Yay! Another hobnob fan. :)
@Karen — Thanks for stopping by! Look forward to hearing how you get on.
@libby — It seems Gmail won’t connect to Hotmail directly just yet. You might consider using one of the Hotmail forwarding services available. I’ll add a note to the article to this effect.
@Skellie — Thanks very much for the warning! I probably get about 200 emails a day right now. I don’t check them all as they come in religiously, but my notifier count rarely gets above 20 before I process it. I dread to think — how many are you receiving these days?
@The Cubicle Guy — Thanks for the kind words. GTalk sounds like a good alternative to Notifier. Does it have a shortcut to compose an email in your browser? This is the killer feature for me for any webtop-to-desktop email bridging app. I recommend staying logged into Gmail and just password-protecting your computer — it saves so much time.
–
Yikes! I’m off to put the kettle on. Keep your thoughts and feedback coming all.
20 Feb 08
11:02
Barry
@Nick - The problem for me is that I have one regular gmail account, and three GAFYD accounts (two business, one personal). My solution is to use good old Apple Mail, and have each account set up to use the correct SMTP log in. I have it replicated on my iPhone too.
I’m gonna go get some Hobnobs to help me think through the best solution :-)
20 Feb 08
12:02
Nick Cernis
@Barry: Yes! Turn to Hobnobs — it rarely fails! In all honesty, it’s a tricky problem that would require Google’s help to address. There’s a lengthy discussion here detailing what Google could do to solve the problem, intermixed with some heated debate about whose fault it is in the first place.
I will look into it some more but, I’m afraid to say, if having your Gmail address appear in the sender bar of your clients’ Outlook applications is a no-no for you, you might be better off taking a deep breath, sticking with your Mail iPhone setup, and taking solace in a nice box of hobnobs until the problem is remedied.
It certainly makes more sense than using Gmail to receive all your email and then having to trip over to your GAFYD accounts to send it. I’ll report back if I find a better solution.
20 Feb 08
12:02
m_s
thanks for this - great tips. would love to hear more on your labels ideology. i have recently started living out of my gmail account (after using various clients on windows and mac, like you) - actually, i’m using mailplane at the moment, but feeling pretty ambivalent about that. anyway, if you’ve the time, i’d love to hear more about how you use labels, and why that way. thanks!
20 Feb 08
16:02
Nick Cernis
@m_s — You’re welcome! Here are my thoughts about labels:
The concept of labels (or tags) is great. Being able to quickly tag email with relevant keywords can help you dig those emails up later. But there are two big problems with the way most people use these tags.
1) The main problem comes when you’ve been labelling email for a while. What happens is that you end up with hundreds (even thousands) of keywords that encompass an incredibly broad range of subjects. This makes it very hard to scan and apply tags.
2) You have to be very disciplined and have a good memory to use tags effectively. Once you have 50 or so tags, you need to remember that you’re tagging all money-related emails with “finance” and not “money” or “cash” or “dosh” or anything else. It’s very easy to end up creating additional tags to label things you’ve forgotten you already had a tag for! You end up with duplicate labels that often describe the same category.
My simple hyphen system attempts to get around these problems. By using labels like these: PTO-guestpost, PTO-book, PTO-adsales, I can quickly scan a list and apply a label when it’s absolutely necessary.
It maps very logically — you simply think, “OK. Which area does this email belong to? Oh - it’s about Put Things Off. Great, now which ’subfolder’ should it fall into? Oh - it’s an ad sale. I’ll label it PTO-adsales so I can tot them all up when I do my monthly PTO books.”
I’m simply taking the power of tags and applying a folder-like principle. It eliminates some of the problems I’ve talked about above and adds order to what would otherwise be a long list of indecipherable keywords.
Of course, Gmail lets you add these tags automatically based on subject or email content using “filters”, so you can automate much of the process and your Inbox becomes virtually self-filing.
Hope that helps — let me know if it’s gobbledygook!
20 Feb 08
16:02
m_s
thanks, that’s a generous response. let’s see - i have about 18 live labels: maybe that’s not too bad. i read somewhere (can’t remember where, wish i could!) someone saying that he only labelled items that still required a response, and then he removed his labels and archived. i use one big documents folder and have everything in that tagged (with finder metadata), and it works brilliantly, thanks to os x’s spotlight and other programs like filespot and leap. but just dumpin’ all my mail into an archive with no way of finding exactly this message when i need it? a step too far for me. of course, it’s not no way - not at all - i have that considerable google-fu at my beck and call. but maybe i don’t trust myself enough to remember who something came from, and then labels are a pretty cool way of finding every message related to this or that project. or maybe i’ve missed something?
20 Feb 08
18:02
Mary
I have to disagree with the “delete as much as possible” idea. This may be beneficial if you are approaching anywhere near the space limitations, but I’ve been using Gmail for over a year and have only recently reached the “1% of total space” limit. I’ve had several times in the past (using other email hosts) where I deleted an email I thought I wouldn’t ever need again, but then, well, needed it later on. I agree with deleting junk — like stupid emails from coworkers with pictures of kitties or clever “workplace jokes”– though.
Also, I like to use filters- what’s the point of saving emails (or even having email correspondence at all) if you can’t find them again? I use basic folder categories (”Family”, “Work:[insert job name]“, “University Listservs”, etc.) and apply filters whenever I get a new unlabeled message, either by using the sender’s email address or keywords as the basis for sorting. If you don’t label and file your emails, then of course this step won’t save you any time — but if you do, then I have found that this is the most efficient way for me to do it.
20 Feb 08
19:02
Nick Cernis
@Mary — Google actually promoted Gmail on the basis of never needing to delete an email again when it first launched. Archiving everything works OK, but if you get a lot of email, you’ll fill your allocated space faster than you think. You’ll also experience other side-effects, like searches taking longer.
Filters are great too, but I know people who get a little obsessive over them. I find the Gmail search functionality so good that I’ve not needed to label most emails. I can still find everything within seconds.
As always, use what works for you! My advice is just a starting point.
20 Feb 08
20:02
Sterling Okura | bizlift
@Mary - I delete only spam and crap, but archive every business related email. Its great to be able to look up a discussion from over a year ago. I also send a quick email summary after phone conversations. Having everything documented in gmail helps avoid misunderstandings down the road.
My account has tens of thousands of emails and I’m only at 44% usage. Unless you get a ton of huge attachments, the 6 Gigs goes a loooong way.
@Nick - Wooohooo. I finally found Hobnobs at our local World Market store. But they were sold out of the chocolate ones. So close…. :-(
22 Feb 08
15:02
Adam
Something I’d add. I like to use IwantSandy.com for reminders of those tasks, etc that I would definitely forget to do. I know about when (two weeks, one month, next year…) I need to address it again. Then I can archive the email (that once was a task) until I get the reminder and I can resurrect the task.
22 Feb 08
16:02
Mike
OK…so there is one thing I haven’t seen addressed…attachments. I receive loads of attachments. Some of them are summarily rejected by Gmail, being bounced back to the sender. Very bad form. This is what keeps me tied to our corporate email client…Lotus Notes (shudder). Any ideas?
What if somebody tried to attach chocolate Hobnobs and they were bounced?
22 Feb 08
16:02
Karen Swim
I have implemented all of your tips and for the first time in well ever, I am enjoying the sanity of an empty inbox. I have also picked up some great tips from all the comments here.
@Adam, thanks for the Iwantsandy.com tip! I was using Toodledo but it has its missing pieces. I think Sandy with the Inbox Heaven method may set me off on a new level of productivity.
Nick, when you wrote this I bet you didn’t count on spawning a whole new community of people. You may need a discussion forum for this topic! Thanks again for the helpful tips!
Karen
22 Feb 08
16:02
James Chartrand - Men with Pens
Just goes to show how many people use Gmail and how many *should* be using Gmail!
22 Feb 08
17:02
David Lano
Nick,
I have been using Gmail as my primary port for incoming and outgoing email addresses for quite some time now. However, I had never really considered the archiving feature and its advantages with organizing starred items as to-dos. Excellent advice! Thanks!
22 Feb 08
23:02
Joel Falconer
I adhere to the empty inbox philosophy myself, but I found that from a productivity point of view, there was nothing worse than having Google Notifier installed. Once you know something’s waiting for you it’s hard to resist the urge to go and have a look and disrupt your train of thought. I schedule 2-3 email clearing sessions per day and avoid using it at other times unless I need to send a message.
23 Feb 08
06:02
Charlie
This is the bitchenest set of tips ever! Okay, maybe not ever. But it’s still super handy. I was doing about 98% of this before, but thanks for pushing the other 2% home. (Did you see that fast math?)
Thanks for the tips, Nick, and long live shortcuts!