We all spend more time than we might like (and often more than is reasonable) in email. People are constantly complaining about how broken email is, and I can’t seem to go a week without running across some new email client or killer. However, I’m surprised by how few people have really spent the time to get their email experience set up in an efficient way. I’ve had several people ask me for my email tricks (and having worked for year on Google Apps, I have many). Here are my top tips(somewhat specific to Gmail).

  • Keyboard shortcuts. This is quite possibly my favorite feature of Gmail and I can not comprehend why it is disabled by default. Hop into your settings (the gear icon at the top right of Gmail), find the radio button for “Keyboard shortcutcs on” and select it. You can now fully navigate your email with the keyboard — which can save you -so much time.- Type ‘?’ to see a list of shortcuts and learn them. You can navigate messages, search, go to a label, go to the inbox, archive, reply (to all), compose and so much more. It may not seem like a big thing, but with the volume of email we get this time savings really adds up.
  • Filters and labels. We all know that one of the big reasons we get too much email isn’t simply emails directly to us, but mailing lists. You need to be on many of these to see what’s happening, but the volume is overwhelming. I use filters and labels (Gmail’s version of folders) to manage the madness. This moves messages from specific mailing lists into their own label, where I can seesee when I have no messages from a particular mailing list — without having it completely clutter my inbox. To be sure, there are mailing lists that I still let come to my Inbox, but this is a lifesaver for the higher volume lists that aren’t important.
  • In search we trust. I understand the urge to organize email in folder/labels to be found later, but it’s honestly a waste of time. The only labels in my Gmail set up are the ones that are automatically applied per the tip above. Everything else just gets archived. Archived messages in Gmail aren’t deleted or removed — they’re just taken out of the Inbox. If you need to find one later, use search. There are amazing advanced search operators for Gmail and I find them far more effective than any folder hierarchy.
  • Clean Inbox. I know some people who simply leave all of their email in their Inbox and never archive anything. I also find those people are the ones who most commonly miss my emails or forget about them. I’m ruthless, once I’m done with a message, it’s out of the Inbox (archived). When I get an email that requires an action, I make a choice: either respond/do it right now (I usually take this option for anything that will take 3 minutes or less) 0r add the action to my task list (I use Remember the Milk), respond with a quick message about timeline for completing it and archive the message. This allows me to live primarily out of my task list — where I control the priority — and not out of my Inbox, which is really other people’s task list for me. I try and keep the messages in my Inbox below 10 at the end of any day

This isn’t a complete list of everything all of my tips in email, but they are by far the most effective part of my email management routine. I’d love to hear if you have other techniques that are effective at managing the onslaught of email — we all know it’s going to keep coming…