"If thereâs one form of technology thatâs caused me an inordinate amount of stress in my adult life, itâs email. Sending them, responding to them, forgetting to send themâitâs never-ending. Itâs also inevitable. My jobs have always required spending a good amount of time in ye olâ inbox, and thatâs not going to change any time soon. And now that Iâm a parent, I feel the added pressure of fielding communications from pediatricians, daycare, and so on.
As a freelance writer, I use the same email account for my personal and professional communication. For some, this might seem like a chaotic choice, but it works well enough for me. However, it does mean that I have to keep my inbox *super* organized so I donât miss anything. Over time, I have developed a few strategiesâAKA Gmail hacksâto help me stay sane.
That said, the biggest tip Iâd give anyone is just to really explore all of Gmailâs capabilities and experiment with what works for you. Much like organizing a house, thereâs no one âright wayâ to set it up, and everyone has idiosyncratic preferences. But even just based on talking to friends, I think a lot of us underutilize all the options available to us.Â
Below are nine Gmail hacks that make my work and personal life infinitely easier.
1. Snooze Messages
I donât know about you, but one of my biggest fears is totally spacing out on an important email because I saw it and then promptly forgot about it. Given how often I check emails on my phone while watching a toddler, this could easily happen. I find it helpful to snooze messages I canât deal with at the moment. That way, I donât have to see them for a while (out of sight, out of mind!), but I know theyâll pop back up later as if they were just being sent at that time.
Usually, I select one of the default settings (like tomorrow at 8 a.m.), but you can also choose a specific date and time. I also snooze a lot of the âfunâ emails I subscribe to because I donât want them distracting me during the workday, but I do want to revisit them when I have time.
2. Mark Messages as “Unread”
Other times, I use âunreadâ as a way to keep from forgetting about something. So, if I open an email but donât want to respond to it right away, I hit the little envelope symbol up top to âMark as unread.â Itâs so simple, but it helps ease that back-of-the-mind anxiety that it would otherwise get lost in the fray.
3. Schedule Emails
While email norms may have relaxed, I do think thereâs something to be said for respecting the boundaries of evenings and weekends. So, even though I sometimes work at night or on a Saturday, I rarely hit âsendâ during those times. Instead, Iâll schedule it to go out during business hours.
4. Use Templates When Appropriate
When I used to work in sales, I had to send lots of the same kinds of email messages. Eventually, I learned the beauty of templates. There are a bunch of apps and tools out there for people who send a ton of emails for work that are worth exploring if you work in an industry like sales or PR, but you can also save simple templates in Gmail. This also works if you only want part of the email, like the first few sentences, to be templated.
For example, if I pitch a potential client about content writing, the intro is always a brief introduction and description of my background and skills. So, while I may personalize the rest of the message, I can save myself time and effort by using a template for the first bit.
Next time you write something you want to save as a template, click the three little dots stacked on top of one another at the bottom of the message, then select âTemplates.â Note: If this doesnât appear as an option, you may need to go into your settings, find the âAdvancedâ tab, and select âEnable templates.â
5. Use Labels and Folders
I donât use folders as religiously as some folks, but itâs helpful for some things. For instance, as a journalist, I get a lot of messages from PR people. Very few of them are relevant to me at the moment, but I donât want to totally lose them in case I want to look at them later (for instance, if Iâm looking to write about kid toys and want to refer back to something someone sent me four months ago). So, I automatically label all of those types of messages as âPR inquiries,â which saves them to their own folder. I also have a few labels just for fun, like âHappy Box,â which is where I save any particularly sweet messages or positive feedback
6. Customize Your Settings
I highly recommend going into Settings and playing around with the different options. I used to have my inbox set up as âDefault,â with âPromotionsâ and âSocialâ checked as categories. Gmail does a pretty good job of auto-sorting those, so I wouldnât have to see Facebook notifications or promo messages from stores unless I wanted to. Though I donât do it that way anymore, it was a huge improvement from when I didnât have those separate tabs.
Then, I made the more radical change to separate my âunreadâ and âreadâ messages. This strategy may not be for everyone, but it was life-changing for me. Like, I canât imagine functioning anymore without having my inbox set up this way. To do this, I went into âsettingsâ (the small gear icon in the top-right corner), and then selected the âInboxâ tab. Under âInbox type,â I chose âUnread first.â
Now, when I look at my inbox, all of the unread messages are grouped at the top, and everything else is below. I can hide or expand either section by clicking on it. So, if I only want to look at the messages that have not yet been opened, I have the option of hiding âEverything elseâ and just looking at a super clean, non-overwhelming inbox.
For me, there is a huge psychological benefit to not staring at a ton of messages. I know that there are only a few âunreadsâ I need to deal with, and Iâm not worried about them getting buried in my inbox and forgotten.
Now, if youâre thinking âI have 1,369 unread emails, this plan will never work,â I can tell you that I was in the same place before I started doing this. But there is a surprisingly easy way around that. For me, most of my unread messages were spam or promotions from stores, so I knew Iâd never read them. But I didnât want to mass delete my entire backlog, in case there was something important or sentimental that I wanted to refer back to in the future.
What I did instead was mark all of those unread messages as âread.â On the left sidebar, select âAll Mail.â Then, check the little box towards the top to select all the messages on that page. Youâll see that it says, âAll 50 conversations on this page are selected,â and right next to that, âSelect all [some huge number] conversations in All Mailâ written in blue. Hit that and then find the little envelope icon towards the top to âMark as Read.â Thatâs it!
If youâre really exasperated with your inbox, you could also just create a whole new email account to start fresh. I did this about 10 years ago when I decided I needed an email that didnât have my high school graduation year in it (LOL). What helped was setting up the old account to auto-forward to the new one. That way, I didnât have to worry about still checking the old account or missing any messages sent there. To this day, some old friends and acquaintances still email me at the old account, but itâs fine because their message just pops up in the one I now use.
7. Make Scheduling Meetings Easier
If you hit the three little dots at the bottom of the email, you can select âSet up a time to meet,â then your GCal will appear on the side. You can easily see when youâre free, select multiple times for your recipient to choose from, and embed them into the email itself.
8. Ruthlessly Unsubscribe
This isnât exactly a âGmail hack,â but it bears stating that one big sanity-saving strategy for me is to make an almost daily ritual of unsubscribing from email lists. I find that every time I buy something, that store starts to send me promo emails. Not only is it distracting, but it tempts me to spend on stuff I donât need. While I try to always take the extra moment to check (or un-check) the box to let the store know I donât want promotional emails before hitting âbuy,â they seem to creep in regardless. So, itâs an ongoing effort, but I think of it as digital weeding.
9. Get on the Same Page With Your Partner
This is more of a parenting hack than an email one, but my husband and I use GCal a lot to stay on the same page. Any time one of us makes a plan thatâll affect the other one (which is basically anything outside the work day), we create an event for it in GCal. Whether itâs for relatives visiting, a night out with friends, a doctorâs appointment, or what have you, thereâs no squabbling later about the other person being blindsided when they realize theyâre on the hook for solo parenting. (JK, there will always be squabbling, but at least no one can say they werenât warned!)
Some parents even create a shared family email address for all kid-related communications. I haven’t tried this Gmail hack, but it could work for some families.
There are dozens more Gmail hacks than what Iâve shared here, especially if you get into the realm of integrating with other apps such as Trello. Because itâs such an individual process, thereâs no way to know which youâll like without trying them. For me, the effort of continually figuring that out has been well worth it.
Annie Atherton, Contributing Writer
Annie is a mom and writer covering parenting, culture, women, and work. In addition to The Everymom, her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, the BBC, Insider, Seattle Magazine, The Seattle Times, Travel+Leisure, Romper, and Scary Mommy. She’s particularly interested in questions of how people can design their lives and traditions in accordance with their values.