Jan 5th, 2018 - Category: Communication
Lately the tech news has been filled with security articles on issues with ominous names such as Meltdown and Spectre. Yes, these are serious problems that need to be addressed by updating to the latest versions of Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android, but if you want a real chill, think about what will happen when your email inbox reaches its size limit!
For Gmail, that’s 15 GB which can fill up fast with 100 MB cat videos pouring in from friends every day. Worse still are the tens of thousands of small messages that sit in that tiny folder called “Inbox.” Department store ads, the latest airfare sales, Netflix, PBS, that cute restaurant in San Diego that has weekly specials, all collect there like leaves on a pond soon to sink to the bottom. A couple days later, they are buried under a new deluge of email and only surface when searching for something else, like an email from your friend Diego, and you find 175 weekly specials from that cute restaurant in San Diego that you haven’t visited in ages.
Four years ago, I wrote the post “Inbox Zero, Gmail, and Mobile Collaboration Tools” that discussed a product called Mailbox which no longer exists, but the idea of “Inbox Zero” is still a good one. At the moment, my email inbox has ZERO messages in it. Can you believe it? Am I some sort of OCD superhuman?! I’ll let you in on my secret over the next few posts, but here’s a preview of how to get there from the commonly overflowing email inbox.
- Create a new email address for “important emails” and begin to give it out to family and friends. A more private address can also be used for bank logins and other secure websites. Making it a little harder for hackers to access critical accounts is always a good idea.
- Unsubscribe from newsletters that you don’t read as they come in. In a couple of months, it will make a big difference
- Learn to use Gmail’s “Archive” button.
An email inbox is the most effective when only items that require immediate attention show up. - For particularly unruly Gmail accounts (like work accounts), try a tool like “Drag” that gives more control over the behavior of the inbox by transforming it into organized Task Lists. Drag and drop your emails between lists/stages and customize them. It makes the hours spent in your inbox a whole lot easier and more organized.
- Clean out large and repetitive messages from your current email account. Did you know you can search Gmail for messages larger than a certain size so they can be deleted?
It might take work upfront, but the beginning of the year is often good time to do this kind of housecleaning. A long, snowy morning could result in reaching that paradise of “Inbox Zero.”
Happy New Year!