From inception and through growing adoption over the past decade, email has been lauded and defined as a means to reduce clutter and headache, so much so, it has devolved into an experience, a nuisance really, reminiscent of what it was supposed to replace, or reduce tremendously, at least: physical letters and packages.
Spam is annoying.
Google, seven years ago with the beta release of Gmail, looked to curtail our issues with too much information at once—so much was lost in the shuffle. Archiving became the new delete, never getting rid of anything, instead, we’d hoard it and use search (what Google is known for) to look and find what we needed.
They pushed newer options of labeling and filtering, with the promise of keeping things in line and easily accessible; however, when a mailbox reached 20k+ emails, search become increasingly slow and the mailbox was still inundated with fluff and spam.
Mobile devices such as iPads and smartphones have become ubiquitous in all realms of life, from the casual tech user to hardcore business technophiles. This is problematic when such devices lack the storage capacity of a Macbook or desktop computer, coupled with paltry speed offerings from 3G and WiFi, making wading through thousands of emails a cumbersome endeavor.
This is where i bring a solution to the digital/mobile table, with Gmail organization tips: i breakdown my emails into separate acounts, which at first glance would seem to be more work, but once setup, it’s a boon to productivity and convenience.
I use each address solely for one or two purposes/subjects. The accounts are as follows:
- writing@__.com: for poetry or blog posts or friends/colleagues who send me drafts of their manuscripts or other writings
- me@__.com: for my loans, retirement, bank and healthcare accounts, as well as travel/flight itinerary
- reading@__.com: subscriptions to blogs that I read daily (RSS readers are so 2008 lol)
- design@__.com: design clients and inquiries
- misc@__.com: a catch-all for the daily random crap that finds its way on my digital doorstep
For me, this helps tremendously, because i can glance at my phone or Outlook software and instantly know if there is anything new for a given subject. If i don’t feel like looking at anything but new writing-related emails, i don’t have to worry about it–i’ll just check my writing@ account. Same for design@ and the others.
If you would like to know how to setup your own domain to use Gmail as the backbone for your email, hit me up. I’ll probably have a write-up on the soon-to-launch, NTFN.
Oh, and if you don’t have your own domain name like i do, i suggest this: subject_myemail@gmail.com and subject2_myemail@gmail.com. Try it out. Hope this helps.
Peace.