30 | 📧 For those who hate email...
Email haters, rejoice with this simple way to take control of your inbox.
Hi,
For the past few months, my work email has slowly been taking over my life.
So, I thought I'd share some of the main ways I am taking back control of my inbox over the next few weeks.
And yes, I am aware of the irony of me writing about how to make emails less bad - in the form of an email. But let's roll with it!
Today, I present to you:
Labels and Filters. Trust me: they are much more exciting than they sound.
BTW: these are relevant to Gmail, but I'm sure they'll apply to other email providers.
👋🏻 Label, meet reader. Reader, meet label
Labels are basically folders. They can be applied to anything - bills, receipts, amazing and useful newsletters - whatever you need.
Labels are great, because you can quickly find specific, related emails.
Let's use my 'Subscriptions' label as an example, which I use for newsletters I'm subscribed to.
As you can see, I'm subscribed to quite a few.
They can tend to fill up my inbox quite quickly, which isn't great when I try to keep my inbox as empty as possible.
I usually read them on the tube, so I have them ready to go, labelled as 'Newsletters' for when I need them.
There's 2 problems here:
It's time consuming to label everything manually
Labelling emails doesn't remove them from my inbox
So, how do I avoid labelling everything manually, and allowing these newsletters to fill up my inbox?
By setting up an automated filter that does the job for me.
Label, meet filter
Head to:
Settings > Filters and Blocked Addresses and select ‘Create a new filter’
Here, you can enter any newsletter email addresses that you receive.
The filter will automatically then apply the 'Newsletter' label when they arrive in your inbox. No more manual labelling!
What about them clogging up your inbox?
As well as automatically applying a label, you can also select 'Skip Inbox'.
This setting sends any relevant emails straight to the label, without entering your inbox (technically they are 'archived').
So - when you need them, they'll be ready to go under your 'Newsletter' label.
Easy! And remember, this can apply to any type of email you like.
Hope this helps!
Thanks! 😎
If you found this interesting and useful, feel free to subscribe. I send emails like this every Tuesday - see you next week 👍🏼
Photo of the Week 📸
This Week’s Recommendation 🔝
App (iOS/Android) 📱 - Splitwise
The easiest and most simple way to keep track of group spending. Great for holidays, nights out, the lot. I've been using and relying on it for a couple of years now (and it's free!)
This Week I’m: ⬇️
Reading 📚 - Under the Whispering Door - T.J. Klune, about to start The Minimalist Entrepeneur - Sahil Lavingia
Working on ⚖️ - Getting better at budgeting
Thinking about 🗓 - 2 months left of 2021 to make it as great as possible. How?
Looking forward to 🕺🏻 - Printworks this Friday
This Week’s Quote 💬
A small act is worth a million thoughts.*
— Ai Weiwei
*Start now.
Question 🤔
What have you been putting off that you know will take less than 5 minutes?
There we have it!
Looking forward to catching up next week.
In the meantime, find me on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, and have a look at what I’m reading on Goodreads. Ciao!