Life would be much easier if there was a magic button to answer all your emails, while you were on a vacation. But in reality, you return to a mountain of mails, waiting to be answered. To not lose your mind, follow these simple tips to manage your inbox.
Get smart with shortcuts
Ask Los Angeles-based marketer Scott Tousley, who vouches for this effective tip.
He spent just a few minutes learning some of the important shortcuts and started applying them. It saved him one second per email action, which meant about 15 minutes per day. That is a considerable amount of time saved. The good part is this convenience is available for all of us. We just have to get down to using it right. You can start with the commonly used features—press C to compose, B+D for drafts folder, R for reply, A for reply all, F for forward, E for archiving selected messages, = for making selected messages as important, K to jump to newer email, J to jump to the previous email, N to jump to next message in email thread and a lot more.
Blooper? No problem
We’ve all marked emails to the wrong people by mistake. In that moment of panic, we try to undo the task but it’s too late by then. We then waste precious time sending explanatory or apology mails. You don’t have to do that anymore because now Gmail has introduced its undo feature that lasts up to 30 seconds. You will find this is the settings.
Out of the can
There are a host of emails that need a standard response. Typing the same response every time is exhausting. Canned responses help here tremendously. They save a lot of time and energy. Create handy templates that you can use later. You can activate this feature from the settings on your Gmail. It
is actually as simple as it sounds.
Weed out
Pluck out the unwanted emails first so the inbox gets lighter. These are usually advertising or promotional emails that come by the hour. Some of us also subscribe to newsletters that choke our inbox. Set up tabs like ‘social’ or ‘promotions’ so that when you open Gmail, you won’t have to see the overwhelming number of emails at once. The mails automatically get stored in their designated folder and you just have to go to that folder and ‘delete all’ before giving it a cursory glance. Sorting emails in this way will help you save time and energy.