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If you’re identifying yourself as a person doing that dreaded email cycle in the above comical illustration, you came to the right place!
In the ever evolving world of communication – Use of online social networking (Facebook, Twitter et al), cell phones (text messaging / SMS) etc, email is still considered the standard communication channel whether you’re a student, a techie, an online marketer, a business (wo)man, an entrepreneur or a grandpa – to name a few! It’s easy to get hampered down doing monotonous tasks, or checking your email when you should be doing other things. If that is the case, ascertaining how to be more productive with email is a necessity, right? Below you’ll find 12 awesome email (= Gmail) productivity tips for that purpose.
1. Get a Gmail email account:
If you already got one, that’s fine. Otherwise, GET one for Almighty’s sake! It’s that mandatory to stay productive.
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With 7+ GB of storage (you can purchase additional storage if you’ll require and can share between Gmail, Picasa Web Albums and Google Docs too), less spam, and mobile access, Gmail is the best, free professional email client out there that’s intuitive, efficient, and useful. You can easily integrate it with other web tools and Google apps too. You can customize it as much as you ever think of.
2. Make Gmail – Your Unified Inbox:
If you’re still using AOL, Yahoo! Mail, Live Hotmail or any other webmail, pop3 accounts (Say, for example, you’re using Yahoo! mail account for friends/relatives, your work email address and the email accounts of your own domain), switch / connect to Gmail as soon as possible.
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Don’t worry! You won’t be left behind and can forward / import your mails and contacts, ‘send mail as’ feature from Gmail itself. This article will help you to get started. Moreover, if you own additional Gmail accounts, you can integrate those with your main Gmail account too. Thanks to Gmail Lab’s Multiple Inboxes feature. See, no more accessing multiple email accounts to get your mail!
3. Schedule:
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By no means keep your Gmail / email client open all day long (except you have crucial matters that need this). It would be an awful idea even to let yourself open the email client every time you feel like it. That is indeed when email starts to sting your productivity. Alternatively, schedule particular times during your day when you are considered to check and process your emails. For instance, decide you’ll only open the email inbox at 10 AM, 2 PM, 6 PM and 10 PM (like I do). At all other times, simply forget it! It’ll be difficult for an avid mail checker to schedule time like this. But it will be worth it all.
4. Be Methodical:
Right on your scheduled time, you should be methodical. i.e., read all the essential emails, archive the ‘read it later’ ones, delete (note: not archive) the spam / unnecessary ones, reply / send the emails you must, and then close it. Every time you open an email message that requires a reply, you should do it right away. Never procrastinate and waste your time!
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Basically, you have to KISS (Ahem, Keep It Short and Simple). Even though an email can be a vital communication tool for your business (even for personal needs), don’t allow it get in the way of other valuable, productive activities.
5. Unclutter and Prioritize:
There is an email routine you need to cultivate. If you are accustomed having hundreds of unread emails staring at you, this will look hard initially, but it is entirely feasible.
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The baby step is to pick a day, probably a weekend, where you can sit for a couple of hours and clean / unclutter your inbox. From there on, aim to keep it with ‘zero new messages’ at the end of every week / working day.
Prioritizing things is ace to be productive in any tasks – so with your emails.
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Once you uncluttered your email inbox (Delete / Archive – Zeroing in), initiate opening and replying to the most important ones. This will ensure that you’ll get to them fresh. Once the significant messages are acknowledged and away from, you can keep on with less concern to the inferior ones, all along your inbox is empty.
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6. Subject lines, Shorter messages and Sending art:
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The subject line is perhaps the most key element of a email message you’re about to send, yet rarely looked upon. Actually, with a meticulously sketched subject line you won’t even need the body of the email! The principle is: write appropriate and explanatory subject lines. You require to capture the attention of the receiver (with something relevant, e.g. like the name of his business or of the project you two are working on) and to swiftly sum up what your email is about.
Writing short, yet concise emails is a skill that anyone can ace. But it needs practice. Every time you are about to send an email, wait for a second and consider if you could purge needless words / phrases / or even complete paragraphs. Don’t be offended about going straight to the point. Nearly everyone knows that emails are thought to be that way, and they won’t be upset as you detached the small talk out of the way.
Acumen but most people overlook this rule: You’ve to read / revise every email before you send it. You’ve to look out for sentence structure and spelling blunders, omitted information / attachments and so on. Once you punch the “Send” button, there is no rebound, and if you have to send something again you’ll be killing time as well as your precious productivity, so make sure to check it twice.
Last but not least, email signatures can redeem a lot of time, since you won’t have to type a salutation, your name or contact details beneath each message. Once again, get it down to piggyback only the related information there, however. Stuffs like casual quotes or pictures will mess your messages at best, and irritate the receiver at worst.
7. Use Keyboard shortcuts:
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Are you still using “Keyboard + Mouse” combo to access your mail inbox? You may very well use the Gmail keyboard shortcuts then – which will help you save precious time. To turn on the ‘Keyboard shortcuts’ functionality, navigate to your Gmail account > Settings > General > Keyboard shortcuts: select the radio button beside ‘Keyboard shortcuts on’ and scroll down the page to ‘Save Changes’. Now, all you have to do is: get to know all the available shortcuts on this page.
8. Automate Replies:
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If you’re tired of typing out the same reply every time someone emails you with a common question (For example, “How’s your business trip?” from dozens of colleagues), now you can compose your reply once and save the message text with the “Canned responses” button. Later, you can open that same message and send it again and again. You can ‘enable’ this feature in Gmail labs (Navigate to Gmail > Settings > Labs – CTRL+F to find ‘Canned Responses’). It couldn’t get any easier unless Gmail automatically pushed the ‘Send’ button. Well, now that’s possible too! You can set a filter to grab one of your saved responses, create an automated reply, and make it hit the Send button for you.
9. Gmail Filters and Labels:
Gmail ‘Filters’ are a big time saver if you discover how to utilize them suitably. They fundamentally let you manage the flow of incoming messages by automatically label, archive, delete, star, or forward your mail, even keep it out of Spam — all based on a set of rules (like combination of keywords, sender, recipients, and more). To create a filter, click on the ‘Create a filter’ link at the top of any Gmail page aside ‘Search Mail – Search the Web button’. From there on, it’s a bit complicated (for a newbie). So make sure to check out the Gmail ‘Using filters’ article beforehand. All not ends here. You can do more with Gmail filters and add loads of functionality in the process. Get started here.
Gmail labels are just like having the categorized folders to your inbox. Say for example, you work in a big office or company; you most likely get many group emails that were sent to a lot of people and that do not burden you directly. It is imperative to filter these emails out, as they are insignificant than the ones sent to you directly. Here is where Gmail Filters – Labels combo kicks in. Just set a filter and label to distinguish and you’re good to go. For more information on Google labels, check out this article. Gmail filters along with labels might be the main productivity boosters for your email checking routine.
Here’s a working example (in pictures – Click to enlarge):
10. Search Gmail Efficiently:
Being a search engine giant itself, Google don’t let down you in it’s Gmail search too. Click on the following picture to enlarge:
You can utilize Gmail search the similar way you’d use Google Search, by entering a word (or multiple words) that occurs wherever within the message you wish to locate. Just type the word in the search box at the top of any Gmail page and press Enter / Search Mail. Your results will be displayed with your search terms highlighted right away. If not satisfied with the results, you can clarify your query further by clicking ‘Show search options’ next to the search box, and entering your values (such as from, to, subject, has the words etc) in the appropriate fields. Even better, you may check out the Gmail ‘Advanced search operators’ to get the results even swiftly and accurately. To learn more about the Gmail ‘Advanced search operators’, you may refer to this handy article.
11. Manage Your Tasks:
Gmail integrated ‘Tasks’ (To-do list) in the sidebar itself under ‘Mail’ and ‘Contacts’ options. Use it.
Just click on ‘Tasks’. In the list’s window, add your task, set a due date, put some notes, move the task between already created lists (if needed) and that’s about it. No buttons to click and it’s saved automatically. Even cool, you can also easily convert emails into tasks: select one or more messages and go to More Actions > Add to Tasks. No need for extra browser add-ons/plug-ins. Killer feature indeed!
12. Google Calender and Docs Gadgets:
Integrate your Google Calendar gadget (schedule an upcoming event [such as meeting] with location and details and get an alert on time), and a Google Docs gadget (shows a list of your recently used Google Docs [documents, spreadsheets, presentations, surveys...] and lets you open, edit, create new one, search across all of your documents) right from within Gmail sidebar.
To enable both these gadgets, click Settings > Labs – scroll down (or CTRL+F to find these), select ‘Enable’ next to both these gadgets and ‘Save Changes’. Gmail will reload the page to show you the gadgets. That’s it.
I hope all these Email/Gmail productivity tips will help you to stay productive in the long run. I may have missed few others awesome tips you know. Please don’t hesitate to share with us in the comments section then.
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