A great comic about the perils of email from The Oatmeal: Please note: I’ve moved my active blogging over to a new site, called Jason Clarke – Infinite Bass Line. I will leave this site up indefinitely, but if you’re interested in my latest posts please consider visiting the new site.
Archive for the ‘Email’ Category
Get Gmail’s Priority Inbox on your iPhone
Priority Inbox works based on a label called “Important” that Gmail’s priority algorithm applies to messages it considers important. Just like you can compose a Gmail search that will include items in your inbox or starred items by using the in:inbox or in:starred search operators, you can include items that Google’s algorithm considers important by [...]
Searching your Gmail more quickly
Earlier this week I wrote up a post at Download Squad about a new browser plugin called CloudMagic that can speed up your already pretty speedy email searches in Gmail: CloudMagic is a Google Chrome and Firefox extension which indexes your email locally on your computer, and provides ridiculously fast results when you search. The [...]
Automating email
This five minute video describes the most interesting new email-related idea I’ve seen in a few years. Hilary Mason, a computer science professor, has created some shell scripts (very simple software programs) that help her deal with some of the more common ways that dealing with email wastes her time. On her site she says [...]
How to get through a full but unread inbox: The 10% Rule
It’s one thing to have an inbox that’s full because nothing has ever been cleared out of it; it’s all stuff that has been read, but never filed. Dealing with that kind of overflowing inbox is fairly straightforward. But what if it’s full of unread messages? For example, have you ever gotten back from a [...]
How to get through your inbox in Gmail quickly
Gmail has a feature called Labs, which allows you to turn on various experimental features. One of those experimental features is called Send & Archive, which basically changes your Send button to a Send & Archive button. So when you reply to an email and hit that button, your reply is sent and the message [...]
How quickly do you expect people to reply to your email messages?
More importantly, how quickly do you respond to messages in your inbox? Do you try to get back to people as soon as possible, or do you let messages linger for days or even weeks? Most of the advice I’ve read on the subject suggests trying to respond as quickly as possible, because it fosters [...]
Help! My inbox is overflowing, what do I do?
Hopefully I’ve convinced you that you need to get to an empty inbox. But if you’re staring at a seemingly insurmountable mountain of messages… what can you do? Please note: I’ve moved my active blogging over to a new site, called Jason Clarke – Infinite Bass Line. I will leave this site up indefinitely, but [...]
Why is the goal an empty inbox?
To truly get a handle on your email communication, you need to have a goal of emptying your inbox regularly. When asked why they do it, most people who keep everything in their inbox respond with, “I can’t delete it; what if I need it?” Please note: I’ve moved my active blogging over to a [...]
What is the Inbox Era?
Welcome to the Inbox Era. Having worked in very email-centric organizations in the high-tech industry for the past 10+ years, I’ve become accustomed to dealing with a very high volume of email. For years I’ve tried to discuss my trials and tribulations with dealing with the onslaught of information coming at me via my inboxes [...]