<aside> đź‘‹ Please feel free to subscribe to my newsletter or follow me at @blakeir
</aside>
Initially published on Medium — February 16, 2016
For years, I struggled with efficiently and effectively tackling my e-mail inbox. As I entered the “real” world, I knew that I couldn’t have hundreds of e-mails sitting unread for weeks at a time.
I tried out a ton of different options, none of which worked on both mobile AND desktop. I needed to craft a solution that accounted for both. After spending hours reading about all of the different ways power-users tackle their inbox, I decided on this set-up.
I’ve been using this set-up for almost a year now, and although my inbox isn’t at zero every night — it gets pretty close. I’ll cover the mobile workflow at the end of this post, as well.
This is what your Gmail will look like by the end of the article:
1. Received an e-mail from Jonathon — it goes directly into my main inbox
2. Open the e-mail from the main inbox.
3. At this point, I have a couple of different options.
Option A)Â I can reply immediately, and archive the e-mail.
Option B) Move the e-mail to my Action Needed folder — so I remember to reply later.
In this case, I opted to do the second option.
4. Using keyboard shortcuts, I just simply pressed: “V” to open the prompt for “Move to”
5. After moving to: “Action Needed” — the e-mail is out of my main inbox and now sits in my: “Action Needed” inbox