Use Tasks

Gmail has introduced a series of applications developed by developers across the world via Google Labs. You can check them out under the Settings -> Labs section of your Gmail. One such application that I find very important is the “Tasks” application. It allows you to create various task lists and organize the work that you have to do into various priorities. Let me explain how I am using Tasks to check my work:

Every time I read my new mails, I wonder what I have to do with it. I will either delete it (or spam, archive it) or do what my manager or a client has asked me to do. So, I have created 3 lists:

a) Tasks that I have to do today.
b) Tasks that I have to do in a short term (2-5 days)
c) Tasks that I have to delegate (assign) to someone.

So, based on what the email has, I select the appropriate list first, then I click on the “more actions” button on the top and then select “Add to tasks“. This way, that email is added to me task list with a convenient option of going to that particular message on a click. Now, I can easily add these tasks in my today’s plan in the reporting system and when I add today’s work before I go, I have a ready reference of what I had done all day. As I finish a task, I check (cross) it in the task list and before I leave for the day, I clear all the completed tasks to have a clean, fresh task list for the next day.

FYI, you can also add tasks manually in this list. The “delegated” list helps me follow up with all the work that I have assigned to any of you.

Star important messages

Every once in a while, you come across a message that has some important information that you have to refer to quite a lot. For e.g. if you ask the server admin to create your svn (subversion or any other version control system) login, he will send it to you in an email. Now, say 10 days later you want to log in again, but you don’t find the mail that the server admin had sent because its lost in the thousands of other mails in your inbox. Searching it becomes very time consuming and hectic for all of us. For such messages, the best option is to “Star” them. You can star any message by clicking on the white star that appears in its left. Once you star it, it becomes yellow or changes color.

Now, whenever you want to review that important info, just click on the link which reads “Starred” in the vertical menu of Gmail (below inbox) – and you will have that message for a ready reference. Also, remember to keep this list restricted to at most 10-15 messages. Do a clean up of this list every 3 months and remove the older starred messages that you don’t have to refer to anymore.

Use shortcuts

Using keyboard shortcuts will save a lot of time. An experienced web surfer will always prefer his keyboard over the mouse. More info here.

Avoid Drafts

Gmail has a feature of auto drafting of message. Having too many drafted messages means you have kept a lot of people waiting. So ensure that you have no drafts. Either send them or discard them.

Make proper use of Filters, Labels, Archive and Spam

I’m sure most of you are using filters and labels. For those who don’t know – Archiving a message removes it from your inbox but does not send it to trash. So, it will appear in your search results under the heading “All Mail”. When you mark a message as spam, Gmail will blacklist that email address for you and any further messages from that email will directly go into the spam folder. So make sure you use these two features responsibly.

You may want to follow the Official Gmail Blog for new features that Gmail keeps introducing every once in a while.

Apologies for this rather long article. We will appreciate any feedback that you may have and will be happy to offer any assistance as desired. Before I sign off for today, here’s a funny cartoon which perfectly demonstrates how ‘hip’ Gmail has become nowadays. Check it out.