In today's fast-paced work environment, managing your inbox efficiently is not just a skill—it's a necessity. Keeping your emails organized can help you reduce stress, stay focused, and increase productivity. This guide will help you improve your email management by:
- Reducing the time emails spend in the “unread” state.
- Ensuring that important emails, especially those shared with "@all", are promptly read and acted upon.
Rules to Go By
We spoke to colleagues who are masters at email management, and compiled their best tips. These aren’t mandatory, but we highly recommend trying them out!
#1 Don’t Let Your Emails Distract You
Emails shouldn’t disturb your workflow. You need to dedicate specific time slots for email management. Follow these simple steps:
- Set a time to check emails: It’s okay if emails are replied to within 24 hours. Just make sure to check emails first thing in the morning and before you end your day.
- Disable email notifications: If you're confident, disable notifications to avoid distractions. Internal communication can happen via Slack. Check important email threads when you feel ready.
Pro tip: Disabling notifications helps you control when you interact with emails, rather than letting them control your day.
#2 React to Every Email
It’s not enough to leave emails hanging in your inbox. Make it a rule to take action on every email. Here's a simple action plan:
- Delete: Unnecessary emails, like notifications about team members joining a platform.
- Unsubscribe: If you delete emails from services repeatedly (e.g., GitHub notifications), unsubscribe from them directly.
- Archive: Useful emails you might need later, but don’t require immediate action.
- Mute: If a thread is popular but irrelevant to you (e.g., event updates you won’t attend), mute it.
- Spam & Phishing: Always report suspicious emails.
- Snooze: If an email requires action on a specific day, snooze it until then.
#3 Keep Your Inbox Empty
It’s satisfying to open your inbox and see no emails left. To get there, archive all emails that you’ve already read:
- In the search bar, type: “is:read” and hit enter.
- Select all read emails by checking the top-left checkbox.
- Click the “Select All” option to select everything in your inbox, then click the Archive button.
Now, your inbox will be empty, and only unread emails will remain.
#4 Manage Your Email Subscriptions
Tired of irrelevant emails cluttering your inbox? Unsubscribe from services that flood your inbox with unwanted messages. Here’s how:
- Github: Unsubscribe from notifications here.
- Atlassian (Jira, Bitbucket, Confluence, etc.): Unsubscribe here.
- Loom: Unsubscribe from Loom emails here.
- Slack: Unsubscribe from Slack notifications here.
- Notion: Manage notifications in Notion.
Make sure to unsubscribe from services that send irrelevant or excessive promotional materials.
#5 Use Groups, Not Folders
Folders might sound like a good idea, but they often lead to ignorance of important emails. Instead, use Gmail’s grouping feature to organize your inbox efficiently:
- Primary: Personal emails or emails specifically addressed to you.
- Social & Promotions: Where spammy newsletters go.
- Updates: Jira, Google Drive shares, project notifications, etc.
- Forums: Emails from “@all” and group chats.
To enable this feature, go to your inbox settings and select Default Inbox view. Customize it to show the categories you want.
#5.1 Set Group Notifications to "Daily Digest"
For less urgent email threads, set your group notifications (e.g., marketing@company.com) to daily digest. This way, you receive a single email summarizing the day’s activities instead of getting bombarded with multiple messages.
#6 Make Sure You Reply to All
When responding to emails, always check the Reply All box to ensure everyone in the loop is included. It’s a small habit that helps with transparency.
To set this as default in Gmail:
- Go to Settings > See All Settings > Default reply behavior and set it to "Reply All".
#7 Use Internal Email Tools
To streamline communication, use your internal email templates if exists. These templates can save you time and ensure consistency in responses.
How you might request a template:
- Share the following:
- Your email template.
- The name of your team.
- The subject line of the email template.
- The link to the document page with more details about the template's use case.
And now you're the ruler of your inbox, not vice versa!
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