In this step-by-step overview, learn how to organize your email and get to inbox zero in Gmail from an ex-Google employee. With this system you’ll never miss a follow-up, and you’ll be able to track responses.
Host: Michael Mostert
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⌚ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Introduction
0:23 Email categories
0:34 Create new labels
1:43 Colorize labels
2:20 Enable multiple inboxes
4:06 Triage email
6:35 Clear out inbox
7:22 Tips and tricks
7:48 Wrap up
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Hey everyone, Michael here. Today, I want to
talk to you about how to organize Gmail and get To inbox zero. When I worked at Google, I would
routinely receive 200 to 300 emails a day. And Let's be honest, no one can stay on top of that
amount of email. With this system, I'll ensure You never miss a follow-up and you'll always be
able to track your responses. Let's check it out. When you look at your inbox, emails generally
fall into one of three categories. Follow-up, Awaiting response, and need to read. First, let's
go set up some labels. Here we are inside of the Inbox of Gmail. As you can see, I have a lot
of unread emails, and one of the first things I want to do is split these up into those three
categories we talked about, which are follow-up, Awaiting response, and to read. In order to do
that, I'm first going to need to create labels Over here on the left side. I'm going to hit this
plus button to do so. The first label that I'm Going to want to create here in the label prompt
is the label for follow-up. And one little trick That I like to do is I like to use the brackets on
my labels so that it ensures Gmail always keeps it At the top of the labels list, even if everything
becomes alphabetized. I'm going to go ahead and Hit Create. I don't want to nest it under any
other labels, which means sort of bury it under Another label. So this is the action I want to
take. Now that I've created the follow-up label, Which we can see over here on the left side, I'm
going to want to follow-up on that follow-up label By creating another one. Next, we're going to do
the awaiting response label, same thing as last Time, hit the Create button. The final label
we're going to create is the one for to read, Also create. Now that we've created our three
labels on the left here, we can see awaiting Response, follow-up, and to read. A nice touch
that I think really helps things stand out is To colorize them. And later when we set up
multiple inboxes, you'll see why this really Helps. To colorize your labels, just move your
cursor directly to the right of them, click these Three little dots, select in there, and hit Label
Color. For awaiting response, I personally always Loved orange. For follow-up, I like yellow.
And for to read, since it's not that urgent, I didn't like a really bright or hot color, I
just went with a light blue. Now that we have Our labels all set up and nicely colorized, let's
move over to the Settings section so we can add Something called Multiple Inboxes. Click the gear
icon to bring up all of the settings available in Gmail. What we're going to want to do now is
scroll past all of these settings you see here Down to something called Multiple Inboxes. We're
going to click on this, and then we will also hit Customize. Now that we've hit the Customization
button for multiple inbox sections, we are brought To this beautiful area where we can decide to
break up the monolithic inbox of Gmail, which just Goes on and on, into five distinct sections. So,
the first section we're going to create here is The one about awaiting response. In order to name
one of our sections into awaiting response, we're Going to have to type in label colon, and then the
bracket Awaiting Response, and then end bracket.
It's important to use the exact characters we
use to make the label in order for Gmail to Recognize that we want to use the label. Next,
we're going to want to enter in a friendly name. We're going to repeat that step two more times,
once for follow-up and once for to read. Now That we have filled in all of the sections label
headings, we can move down and tinker with any of The other settings we'd like to. Personally, I
do not want to change anything from the default Settings, but there is one that I do want to
change, which is the multiple inbox position. I Personally like to have that to the right of the
inbox because it is easier for me to process and Look at. If you want to put it above the inbox
or below the inbox, that's completely up to you. Next, and finally, we are going to hit save
changes to make sure that everything is kept The way we want it. Now that we've saved
all of those settings for multiple inbox, We come back to the standard Gmail inbox and we
can notice some changes. Over here on the right, We have our three buckets, awaiting response,
follow-up, and to read. This is really where we Get to start using these buckets. So now you can
see over here, I have a whole inbox just waiting For me to read through and I want to chunk this
up nicely so I know what to do with them. So one Of the first things that catches my eye is
this email about customer feedback received, And it says action required. So I'm going to
go ahead and right click on this and use label As and put follow-up to it. And look at that,
it moves directly over into our bucket called Follow-up. Now that we've moved Lee's email over
into follow-ups, I'm going to go back and check My inbox to see what else is in there that might
be worth looking at. I see here that there is an Internal newsletter. I've kind of been hearing
some buzz about this. I'm going to check on it. Okay, this looks like something that I
might want to read later. So I can also, From this very screen, add a label and move it
to the to read section. Now that I've marked This one as to read, I'm going to go back
out to my inbox to see what else there is. I see something from Lynne about
delivery not working as planned. Nope, this is Comic Sans. I'm not going to read
this one right now. It's too much too early in The morning, so I'm going to go back out. Then
there's this one where it says end of message. Can You work this weekend? Well, that's a bit cryptic,
so I'm going to actually reply to this. Now that I've followed up with Patti and asked her to
provide more context before I work this weekend, I want to make sure that I have some idea as to
why she wants me to work this weekend, so I'm Going to await her response. So, I'm going to go
up here to the label and hit Awaiting Response. Now you can see as we're back in the
general inbox area, we have three sections, Each of which is filled up with email. So the
first one is Awaiting Response, which means I Am just waiting for someone to get back to me and
I do not have any action required. After that, There is one email in Follow Up, which means I
do have to do something and this really keeps me
On track throughout the day that I have something
to do. Finally, I have one in the To Read bucket, Which ultimately could be considered the least
important bucket, but I do want to highlight That there is something for me to read in the
future if I have the time to get to it. Now I'm Going to go through and categorize the rest of my
messages in my inbox. Now that I've gone through And processed all my email and moved them into the
appropriate sections or buckets, I want to clear Out my inbox to get down to inbox zero. So what
I want to do now is go up here and say Select All And then find this little arrow archive button and
hit it. Now we have the most beautiful of sites, A complete inbox zero. This frees up our mental
space to deal with anything that we have left In the Follow Up section. Earlier today, I spoke
with Lynne offline and so I know we do not need To follow up with this Pigeon Delivery email
anymore, so I'm going to click the little X on This Follow Up label to get rid of it. After
removing the Follow Up label, I can see that It no longer exists in the Follow Up section
and it is also not in the Inbox section. Now That we've cleared out the inbox, I want to show
you a couple of other little tricks that you can Do over here on the right-hand side. First, you
can expand and collapse these if they're ever too Much for you to look at. If you want to prioritize
one type of email over another within a section, You can always use a little star icon. And if you
ever have too many emails that you feel you need To read at once, you can go into a dedicated view
by clicking on these numbers. I know sometimes Gmail can feel a bit daunting as one long list,
but I hope that this system has helped you get Control of your inbox a little more. If you
have any other tips or great ideas, please share Them in the comments below and please do consider
subscribing and I will see you in the next video.
