How your phone can make your email inbox more productive

Posted by on Aug 18, 2008 in DIY, Jedi mind tricks, Productivity | 11 comments

Mail on the iPod TouchI get a lot of email. When I came back from vacation this morning, I faced hundreds and hundreds of emails, from status reports to pitches and everything in between. How did I whittle this down to something manageable?

When I face a lot of email on the desktop client, there are a lot of choices – do I label it? Flag it? File it? Delete it? Archive it? Should I respond to this now? Should I put this on my calendar?

Too much choice can paralyze.

To solve this, I gave myself less choice.

It’s simple. I start by checking my mail on my phone. I never respond to email on my phone because frankly, that’s a pain in the ass. Even on the much vaunted iPhone, the keyboard is still too small to be practical for responding to stuff in volume. Instead, I use it as a first-pass filter and have four verbs to apply to each message based on what the GMail mobile interface lets me do quickly:

  • Leave it alone
  • Star it
  • Delete it
  • Archive it

Without an option to reply, without all the other clutter, and just four basic verbs, I can clean up my inbox very quickly and productively. This lets me prioritize as well, so that when I do get back to my desktop email client, I have a clear list of the stuff I want to tackle first and in what order.

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  • http://www.hooversbiz.com/ TimWalker

    This is a terrific idea — quickly cuts the pile down to size.

    The folks I know who have perpetually-overstuffed inboxes tend to get bogged down in thinking of Big Answers to everything, instead of getting things triaged quick-and-dirty.

  • http://www.hooversbiz.com/ TimWalker

    This is a terrific idea — quickly cuts the pile down to size.

    The folks I know who have perpetually-overstuffed inboxes tend to get bogged down in thinking of Big Answers to everything, instead of getting things triaged quick-and-dirty.

  • http://danieljohnsonjr.blogspot.com/2008/05/my-virtual-business-card.html Daniel Johnson, Jr.

    I recently printed out GMail's keyboard shortcuts to help me better wade through my email. It has helped tremendously.

  • http://danieljohnsonjr.blogspot.com/2008/05/my-virtual-business-card.html Daniel Johnson, Jr.

    I recently printed out GMail's keyboard shortcuts to help me better wade through my email. It has helped tremendously.

  • http://www.mind-movies-review.com Max

    Fully agree, do something with it, and move on.

    Brian Tracy (famous get what you want type guy) talks about only ever handling a piece of paper once. Do something with it once only. The same should apply to email.

    I always look an email and think, if I did nothing with this, would it matter. If the answer is no (it would not matter). I delete it.

    And short, curt answers are often better.

    Don't forget about not checking email 1000 times a day either, why not just check it once an hour or something like that.

    Like I could do that though. lol

  • http://www.mind-movies-review.com Max

    Fully agree, do something with it, and move on.

    Brian Tracy (famous get what you want type guy) talks about only ever handling a piece of paper once. Do something with it once only. The same should apply to email.

    I always look an email and think, if I did nothing with this, would it matter. If the answer is no (it would not matter). I delete it.

    And short, curt answers are often better.

    Don't forget about not checking email 1000 times a day either, why not just check it once an hour or something like that.

    Like I could do that though. lol

  • http://chelpixie.com chelpixie

    I never answer email on the go unless it's urgent, but I'm constantly culling what email comes in so there's less to deal with later.

  • http://chelpixie.com/ Chel Wolverton

    I never answer email on the go unless it's urgent, but I'm constantly culling what email comes in so there's less to deal with later.

  • http://www.bestvideoplayer2010.info/ Phillip

    Oh now this is news to me! I wasn't aware of this option from google so this should help quite a bit to trim down my inbox. I like that I can do this on the go like you said when standing in line somewhere, etc. thanks for the tip!

  • http://www.bestvideoplayer2010.info/ Phillip

    Oh now this is news to me! I wasn't aware of this option from google so this should help quite a bit to trim down my inbox. I like that I can do this on the go like you said when standing in line somewhere, etc. thanks for the tip!

  • http://www.bestvideoplayer2010.info/ Phillip

    Oh now this is news to me! I wasn't aware of this option from google so this should help quite a bit to trim down my inbox. I like that I can do this on the go like you said when standing in line somewhere, etc. thanks for the tip!