This post is a continuation of my post about managing my tasks, projects, and responsibilities. There are links to the other posts at the bottom of this post.
I have clients that insist on using just email to communicate, which is fine with me because I use GMail, which lets me keep emails in threads instead of as individual emails. This makes keeping a conversation in control very easy. However, my inbox is constantly full. For the last couple of weeks, I have noticed that when I empty my inbox out before bed I have between 20 and 50 emails waiting for me in the morning. Most of them are status updates, automated messages, or twitter messages but it is still a lot of emails to go through in the morning and my inbox would get full of emails.
I needed a way to organize the emails, so that I could find them easily and reliably. I also wanted the emails to be categorized automatically without missing them. GMail to the rescue! They have a labels feature, which can be automated with filters. I found that the filters got to be too numerous though, and I was wishing for nested folder (well labels here) functionality. I quickly went searching and found a Firefox plugin that will turn your labels into “folders” and will allow nesting. The plugin is called Better GMail.
All I had to do was format my labels like a directory path. A good example is “Clients/Matt Bernier”. When I view my Gmail account without the plugin this can be annoying, but I just make sure I have the plugin, and problem solved.
With the filters I am able to make them apply and still leave the label in the inbox, so I almost never miss an email. The only time I would is if it went to spam, which almost never happens.
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