Part Four – Categorization – Tackle that Email Inbox!
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Gosh I hope you’re nothing like me!
I get over 100 emails a day – ranging from email lists, coupons, social networking and the things everyone gets like mail from family and friends. As I’ve mentioned before, with the schedule that I keep, for me to stay on top of things is imperative! If I fall behind for one day, the work the next day is outrageous.
Keeping my inbox clean and tidy is something about which I obsess. There is one product that I could absolutely not do without, and that is GTDInbox.
GTDInbox is a creation of Andy Mitchell. The need for a tool to manage the archives of Gmail was a necessity, and GTDInbox was born. It allows you to assign tasks according to the GTD methodology, as I’ve explained in this post.
The first step when an email is received is to process it.
- If you can deal with it in two minutes or less, do so. Either archive the item, or better yet assign it the “Finished” label so that you can see the process that you are making to stay organized.
- If it isn’t determine if it is a Next Action, Action or Someday/Maybe
- If it falls under Next Action or Action, assign it a project. Labels in Gmail can be
multi-tiered: So you can have a label that is called “Projects\Blog Research”. If you use Folders For Gmail, you will see a treed hierarchy as shown here. All your Projects will be in a tree under “Projects”. - If it is a Resource, then add a label such as “Resource\Blog Articles”. This too will be in a tree under “Resources”
- Once it has the labels that you deem necessary, archive it! Gmail’s search features and labels are so robust that you will be able to find it in no time.
- If it falls under Next Action or Action, assign it a project. Labels in Gmail can be
The next phase is the review.
Review is a core part of the process, mainly used to find your upcoming actions, or to discover more information – or resources – for whatever you are working on. Occasionally it’s also used to clean up clutter.
Each day, you review your “Action” and “Someday/Maybe” labels and move them to the appropriate label. “Actions” will move up to “Next Action” and “Someday/Maybe” will move up to “Actions”, as you deem necessary. Review your “Finished” items: you can bask in the glow of accomplishment, or delete them if they no longer serve you.
Another great feature that is built into GTDInbox is the GTDInbox Dashboard. This allows you to select from several different views of your actions labels based on aging and tasks.
But there are even more nifty features to GTDInbox. Check out the image below for all the extra features. Some of these features don’t directly pertain to categorizing email, but all of them will make you more organized and productive with the time that you do have.
I seriously could not LIVE without GTDInbox. Gmail is my main account and GTDInbox is the tool I choose to manage it well. GTDInbox is an extension for Firefox, so you can only use this within Firefox. The browser I use and the majority of my readers use is Firefox. Have you made the switch? I switched from Opera about three years ago, for the simple fact that there are a million extensions to make Firefox just the way you want it. The “skin” that you see on my Gmail is a Stylish script called Gmail Redesigned 2.0. It is the most attractive skin I’ve found for Gmail.
Hopefully this article has helped you to gasp the ability that you have to organize your email and keep it that way. I know it’s helped me a great deal. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me – I’m more than happy to help!
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