Do you ever find yourself swimming in email, wondering if you’ll ever navigate to that place of inbox bliss?
Or does the thought of looking at your inbox want to make you run and hide?
Fear no more, superhero. It is possible to organize your inbox and obtain inbox bliss.
If you haven’t done so already, first clean out the unnecessary emails from your inbox. I tell you how to do that in this post here.
Next, prepare yourself for some techy magic.
In this video, I’ll walk you through some simple steps to use GMail’s labels, filters, and multiple inbox features to help you take charge of your email and blitz your overflowing inbox.
If you don’t use GMail, this video will still help. You can apply these ideas to Mac Mail, Outlook, or any email program you use.
In the comments, I want to hear from you. Tell me…
1. What was the most useful part of this techy tip video?
2. What other strategies do you use for blitzing email overwhelm?
Thanks for watching! If you enjoyed this video, please share it with your friends.
Hey Jenny,
The to-do in box is a great idea! I have been try ingot Flag various pieces of mail with different color to remember I needed to do something with it or save the contents for some reason or another. It gets confusing after awhile! 🙂 I use Mac mail and forward all of my accounts through Mac mail because I like to sit down at my computer and see all of my mail boxes at once and not have to log in somewhere else to get various mail. Then of course my iPhone has it all up to date as well. I’ll have to figure out the labeling thing for the Mac.
Question- the to-do items you still have to physically move those pieces of mail to the To-Do
mail folder right?
Yes, Elle. I choose what emails are to-do items, label them in GMail, then move them to that folder and out of my inbox. I haven’t yet found a way for GMail to read my mind otherwise 🙂
Jenny!!!! I did all the steps right along with you and I LOVE this system. Thank you. I didn’t know how to use the multiple inbox settings ~ this is awesome.
Big hugs to thank you!
x
Enjoy inbox bliss, Nicola!
You must be a mindreader. I have this on my list to accomplish and “figure out” (gmail, domain forwarding, multiple inboxes, that is) for next week! I will watch this next week (and send you Qs if I have any!). I have other priorities to focus on for this week!
Thank you for this tutorial, Jenny! I’ve been trying to figure out how to manage my inbox for a while…I just walked through it step-by-step with you as you described it in the video. Voila! Thanks, again!
Awesome, Stormy! Enjoy the simplicity and clarity of your new inbox.
Love it Jenny — I also do this for all of the newsletter subscriptions that I want to read in a batch…
Love this Jenny – thank you!
But you lost me on the Multiple Inbox thing…why is that necessary (or what additional feature does it do) if you’re already labeling and auto-archiving content to specific folders?
A bunch of my stuff (e.g. Twitter followers) is already labeled and goes to a Twitter update folder.
What would the Multiple Inbox do, as opposed to just creating a To Do & Waiting Folder and putting stuff into there?
Thanks!
Steph
Good point, Steph. For many people, the labels become “out of sight, out of mind” and the transition from “inbox as a to-do list” to “out of sight” makes them nervous. Multiple inboxes allow the emails to be visible, yet also separated from the regular inbox. You’re totally right that you could simply use labels instead of multiple inboxes.
I like the multiple inboxes because it’s one less click to get to the to-do list. That’s simply my personal preference, but either way works.
Oh – gotcha. That makes sense and I like that. You’re right – I’ve done all this work labelling and then I forget about them completely. LOL.
Thanks for the tip!
Thanks Jenny! I friggin’ love gmail even MORE. I didn’t know about the “labs” – this was the best part.
I love that you can add images in gmail, using the lab “inserting images.” I used to embed images in a gmail in a way that took a few minutes. Now it’s just drag n’ drop! This will make my work wayyyy easier 🙂
I’m with you, Anna. GMail has some great features you can’t get with Mac Mail or Outlook. I love that all the messages are in one thread. It really helps keep track of everything really easily.
I effing LOVE it.
Normally I’m ahead of most people in the blog community re: tech issues, but that nugget about Labs Multiple Inboxes….
Heaven.
Rock on, Jenny!
Labs is a very cool place!
Hey Jenny! I loved and followed this tutorial to the “T”! ha!
Now, how on earth did you show your screen while you were giving the tutorial? That’s cool stuff 🙂
Glad it helped you!
To create the video I used software called Screenflow. You can find it here: http://www.telestream.net/screen-flow/overview.htm
Hi, I got everything working (gmail) but when I do what you say for the Labs, after doing say a to-do lab, when I go back to my inbox, I have starred, then “everything else” it never takes my labels?
Hi Barb. Not sure I understand what’s not working for you.
A few things that may help.
1. The stuff that’s already in your inbox won’t automatically leave your inbox until you “archive it.” The filters only work on new, incoming messages.
2. Make sure you label the items that you want to go into the to-do folder as to-do. Meaning, you need to create a label called to-do.
I’m lost about what this means: “when I go back to my inbox, I have starred, then “everything else” it never takes my labels.”
Repost your question and I’ll see if I can help.
Hi, I see that after you made your “multiple inboxes” and went back to your page you can see the different headings of those multiple inboxes, and the emails in them…I made all the labels, and then made the multiple inboxes like you did, but when I go back to my email page, the only two categories of mail are “starred” and the “everything else”, the multiple email headings I created do not come up. no worries
Hi I figured it out, I had to go to “inbox” in settings and put the labels I wanted to see under inbox sections, not sure why the multiple didnt work for me
Thanks so much Jenny for this tutorial. I was able to see how you categorize your folders and created more folders for my email in outlook. Took me about an 90 minutes to go through my total mess of an email system and make it streamlined.
The key for me was to not create a bunch of email accounts. Just use one for all my stuff and filter them. Well, I didn’t quite get it down to one but am so much more organized and can batch process them based on category now when it’s time to work on emails.
So grateful for all your big and little tips, they help SO much! xoxo
Oh, that 90 minutes will seem like nothing with all of the time you’ll save in the long run.
Good for you for working through it, Kim!!
Thanks Jenny! I am already getting SO much more done and it’s saving tons of time! I don’t feel buried by my email accounts any longer!
I just got around to watching this and I love it!! Thanks so much for the tutorial on setting up multiple inboxes! I just set mine up and I feel so much better about my overflowing inbox already!
Awesome, Jadyn! I think the reward is totally worth the time watching and the time organizing that inbox. Nice work!
This was about the most helpful thing ever. I completely admire people like you who figure this stuff out Jenny and then share it with people like me. Sooo helpful. Thanks so much 🙂
So happy it helped you out, Bev. We’re all wired differently, aren’t we? Each with our own gifts. I know that what you do is pure magic, and I admire your work big-time!
Hey Jenny,
Thanks so much for the helpful gmail tips. I’m curious… do you use gmail directly instead of integrating it with Mac mail? I have been using Mac mail so I didn’t have to have another Safari window open, but I like gmail’s interface so much that I might switch back and just deal with the overflow of open windows. How do you handle this?
-Kristin
Sorry for not replying earlier, Kristin! I just saw this comment now.
I just use gmail; no mac mail at all. I’ve never used mac mail so I can’t comment on which better or why. I just know gmail.
As far as open windows. I use the tabs option in Safari (or chrome or firefox), so that I do’nt have to many open windows. Also, I only keep open what I’m using, so that helps minimize open tabs.
Hope that helps a little!
Love it! I have used filters before in my personal email for unwanted emails and just have them deleted or put to a folder in case I need to save them for some reason. I also use labels a lot for filing emails I want to come back to or keep but don’t want crowding my inbox – I think both of those two tools are great!
As for my business though I hadn’t tried this yet but with the overflow of Google+ notifications that have started swamping my inbox the use of filters & labels will be great (I do want to check out some of them but just looking them immediately hitting my inbox freaks me out a bit!)
I’ve heard of the unsubscribing idea before and have used it a few times but I do have a bad habit of collecting information so I tend to subscribe to neat people frequently.
I see cleaner, more streamlined inboxes in your future, Aradia! Especially since you’re so good at implementing systems!
Hi Jenny – thanks for this video. Very useful tip on organizing gmail. I have been struggling to get my inbox under control and I think this gave me some ideas. Thanks!
Love the step-by-step specifics…eternally grateful.
So helpful – thank you!