How to Manage Email: 4 Easy Steps to Gmail Mastery

This guide will teach you how to manage your email like a pro.

These are the tips and tricks that help me spend less time in my inbox and more time on work that actually matters.

So if you want to:

• Never overlook an important email again
• Spend less time sorting through a cluttered inbox
• And enjoy the clarity of inbox zero

Then you’re going to love the detailed strategies in this step-by-step guide.

Let’s jump right in.

Step 1: Consolidate Your Email Under One Gmail Account

If you have more than one email account, the first thing you need to do is consolidate.

Most people have at least two email accounts: One for work and another for personal use.

Some people have many more.

I have six. If I didn’t consolidate them all, managing my email would be a nightmare! I would waste hours going back and forth between each account, and I’d likely lose track of some important messages along the way.

Thankfully, Gmail makes it really easy to manage every email all in one spot.

To get started, turn on email forwarding.

How to turn on email forwarding

Automatic email forwarding is a common setting that can be turned on for any email service providers. It allows you to redirect all incoming messages to a different email address.

Your forwarding settings should be easy to find.

Here are two examples.

Gmail Forwarding

• Open settings by clicking the gear icon.
• Navigate to the “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” menu.
• Click the button to “Add a forwarding address”

• Check your email for a verification code and confirm new settings.
• Return to settings and update your preferences to “archive Gmail’s copy.”

• Click here if you need additional help.

Outlook Forwarding

• Open settings for Mail.
• Select the “Forwarding” sub-menu.
• Check the box to “Enable forwarding.”
• Enter the forwarding email address.

• Click here if you need additional help.

How to send email from a different address

Gmail has a neat feature that lets you add multiple email accounts.

Adding accounts gives you the ability to send messages from another Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, or any non-Gmail address that you own.

Here’s how:

• Open settings by clicking the gear icon.
• Navigate to the “Accounts” menu.
• Click “Add another email address” and follow the instructions.
• Choose your default settings for when replying to a message.

• Click here if you need additional help.

When you’re done, you’ll be able to choose which email address to use when composing new emails.

Now that everything is under one roof, it’s time to talk about how you can stem the tidal wave of email you get each day.

Step 2: Reduce The Amount of Email You Get

Email gets easier to manage when there’s less of it.

Contrary to what you might think, there are plenty of practical ways to reduce the amount of email you receive.

They include (in order of effectiveness):

• Unsubscribe
• Use Gmail filters
• Mute conversations
• Send less to get less

Let me explain further.

Unsubscribe from all unwanted mailing lists

Unsubscribing from mailing lists is by far the best way to reduce the amount of email you receive.

Don’t archive or delete junk mail without taking the time to unsubscribe.

Invest 10 seconds to locate that little “unsubscribe” link near the bottom. Otherwise, those unwanted emails will just keep coming back. 

Your inbox is a sacred space. Protect it. Cherish it. 

Don’t let it become a dumping ground for garbage that you’ll never read.

How to filter emails in Gmail

Gmail filters are awesome. I use dozens of them to help me manage my email and keep my inbox clear. 

They’re exceptionally useful for organizing email newsletters.

I’m currently subscribed to over 50 of them. If I didn’t use filters, I would be drowning in excess email. Not to mention that I’d be hopelessly distracted from getting any work done.

Filters ensure that my newsletters always skip the inbox (archived) and then get tagged with an appropriate label so I can find and read them later.

They are super easy to setup.

• Select a message.
• Click the three dots to view more options.
• Click “Filter messages like these.”

• Gmail will auto-populate the filter criteria.
• Click the blue “Search” button to verify that the filter is correct.
• Click “Create filter.”

• Select what you want Gmail to do with future messages that match your filter.
• For newsletters, I always choose to skip the inbox, apply a label, and match conversations.

In the example above, emails from community@indiehackers.com will no longer land in my inbox.

Instead, I’ll find them under the label I created where I can read them when I have time. 

Of course, archiving newsletters is only one way to use Gmail filters.

You could also use filters to forward management reports to your team, or expense receipts to your boss.

As you get more familiar with using filters, look for opportunities to automate tasks and eliminate unnecessary email from your inbox.

Mute conversations that are no longer relevant

Have you ever been caught in the middle of an email conversation that’s no longer relevant to you?

Stop those email threads in their tracks by using Gmail’s mute function. It’s a convenient way to discreetly excuse yourself from the conversation.

Once a conversation is muted, future replies will not show up in your inbox.

It’s not something that I do often, but you should how it works just in case you ever need it.

• Select the conversation you want to mute.
• Click the three dots to view more options.
• Select “Mute.”

Send less to receive less

My final advice is best summed up by the maxim, “What goes around, comes around.”

Sending a lot of emails tends to attract even more emails in return.

Next time, think before you hit send.

Would a phone call answer your question faster? Or could that project update wait until the next staff meeting?

I keep running lists for all of the recurring meetings and important people that I interact with throughout the week. Questions and follow-ups that can wait until I see them next are added to this list, which cuts down on the number of email I send, and consequently, receive.

A lot of the email we send isn’t necessary. It’s just convenient in the moment.

Step 3: Simplify and Get Organized

Gmail gives you a lot of flexibility when it comes to organizing your inbox.

However, I think most of the advanced options do more harm than good. 

The best way to manage email is to keep it simple.

Disable inbox category tabs

Gmail’s default inbox will automatically organize new messages into multiple inbox categories: Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates, and Forums.

If your inbox has any of the five tabs shown above, I strongly suggest that you turn this setting off.

Managing multiple inbox categories is not much different than managing multiple accounts. It only creates more work and adds unnecessary complexity.

Disable all inbox categories with the following:

• Open “Quick settings” by clicking the gear icon.
• Scroll down to “Inbox Type.”
• Select “Default”
• Click “Customize”

• Deselect all categories except “Primary.”

Disable importance markers

Spot any yellow flags like these in your inbox?

These are “importance markers.”

Gmail will try to guess which emails are more important than others based on your past actions (if you let it).

I give Google a lot of credit for their AI prowess, but I never quite understood this Gmail feature.

How could any algorithm possibly know which emails are more important to me?

If you share my opinion and find these yellow flags rather annoying and useless, take these steps to get rid of them.

• Open settings by clicking the gear icon.
• Navigate to the “Inbox” menu.
• Turn off importance markers.

Use labels to organize reference material

The best way to organize gmail is with labels.

Labels are really handy whenever you want to file emails away for quick reference in the future.

New labels are really easy to create.

• Select a message.
• Click on the label icon and “Create new.”

I’m constantly creating new labels and deleting old ones that are no longer useful.

If I receive an email with details related to a project I’m working on, I’ll create a new label for it. Then when the project is completed two months later, I might get rid of it.

Other labels are permanent. Such as my “Receipts” label which I use for online purchases.

Email can be a valuable repository of information if you invest a little bit of forethought into how you organize it. Consider creating reference labels for:

• Positive feedback from your boss, colleagues, or clients.
• Proof of progress or achievement.
• Great examples of “X” (e.g. copywriting, welcome emails, meeting agendas, smart questions, etc.)
• Ideas and inspiration.

Use labels to organize workflow

Labels can also be used to manage your email workflow.

I use these four:

• Action
• Waiting For
• Maybe/Someday
• To Read

They should look familiar if you’re a student of Getting Things Done. Like GTD lists, these labels help me process my inbox quickly and efficiently.

Action

The “Action” label is applied to any email requiring a response or follow-up that can’t be done in two minutes or less.

It becomes my focused email to-do list.

All of my most important emails reside here until I have time to work on them.

Waiting For

The “Waiting For” label helps me follow-up on requests or delegated tasks.

If I need a time-sensitive response, I’ll tag the email with a “Waiting For” label before I hit send.

Then during my Weekly Review, I’ll take a look at the emails with the “Waiting For” tag and make a note to follow-up as needed.

I sometimes use Gmail’s snooze function in tandem with a “Waiting For” label. Snooze lets you pick a date and time to postpone emails until you want them to come back to the top of your inbox.

• Select a message.
• Click the snooze icon.
• Choose when to see this email back in your inbox.

Someday/Maybe

This label is used ad-hoc for emails that spark my interest. There are no hard and fast rules. It’s mostly a catch-all for things that I want to take a second look at in the future. 

Like the “Waiting For” label, I quickly review emails in this category during my Weekly Review. Eventually, I decide that they’re either worth doing something about or I delete them.

To Read

I may subscribe to over 50 newsletters, but I certainly don’t read all of them. 

Instead, I tag those that look interesting enough to read with this label, and then revisit them whenever I have some free time.

Step 4: Use the 2-Minute Rule to Achieve Inbox Zero

Inbox zero is the epitome of email mastery.

But it’s not some elusive state of email euphoria only experienced by the most hardcore productivity enthusiast.

Inbox zero is actually quite easy to achieve and should be the standard expectation for all professionals. 

Why does inbox zero matter? I like how Matt Mochary explains it in his book The Great CEO Within.

“Think of your combined inboxes as a single triage room at a hospital. Some cases that come in are urgent, others not so much. It is critical to notice the urgent cases immediately, and get them in to see a doctor now. To do so, you must keep the triage room clear. If you use the triage room as a waiting room as well, then a new patient can enter the room, sit down in a chair, and bleed out from his stab wound before you even realize he is there. For this reason, every well-functioning hospital separates its triage room from its waiting room, and keeps the triage room absolutely clear. To be efficient, you must do the same with your inbox. This means addressing all the urgent cases right away, and maintaining Inbox Zero every day.”

If you’ve followed my advice for how to manage your email in the previous chapters, getting to inbox zero won’t be difficult. 

Just follow the 2-minute rule.

The 2-minute rule for email

The 2-minute rule applied to email goes like this:

1. If the email takes less than two minutes to take care of, do it immediately. Reply back, forward, label, or archive it. 
2. If it takes more than two minutes, then you move it to your “Action” label.

That’s all there is to it. 

When the two-minute rule is applied to a well organized inbox, you’ll be able to process hundreds of unread emails in 20 minutes or less.

Final Thoughts

I must create a system or be enslaved by another man’s.

William Blake

Upon completing the outline for this guide, I paused to ask myself, “Is this topic really worth my time?”

Experience told me that precious few people have a firm handle on their email. I’d witnessed firsthand the frustrations of a disorganized inbox. If there was one place people needed help improving their productivity, it was here.

However, my intuition questioned whether anyone actually cared enough to do anything about it. Email isn’t new. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of articles that have been written about how to manage it. Was there anything I could add to the conversation?

A few days later my Twitter feed blew up with excitement around a new product from Basecamp. They introduced a paid email service called HEY which promised to “transform emails into something you want to use, not something you’re forced to deal with.”

Soon afterwards, I learned about Superhuman for the first time. Here was another product designed to help you take control of your inbox with speed and simplicity.

This became the inspiration I needed to continue writing. Apparently, people do care about getting their email under control. They’re even willing to pay $30/month for help.

Now, I have nothing against HEY or Superhuman. I’m sure they’re excellent products. But they’re entirely unnecessary. Gmail isn’t broken. Most people just don’t know how to use it properly.

This guide was born out of a desire to help you reclaim control of your inbox and get back to doing work that matters without paying for a fancy ESP or downloading a bunch of extensions that you don’t need.

All the tools that you need are already at your disposal. You just need to learn a better system.

I hope this guide helps you get started.