How to Control Your Gmail Inbox » Get through your email faster with Gmail Priority Inbox

Do you have an effective way to process and read your priority email so that you can deal with the important matters of the day? As blogger, I always receive lots of email in my Gmail Inbox, and I always want to read first those important emails rather than checking out those chain mails from friends.

Sometimes, I've opened an email and thought, "Hmmmmm, not sure what to do with this. Damn!  I will deal with it later!"—and promptly closed the message or drag it to some folder. I thought if I do this over and over again, it doesn't take long to end up with hundreds—or even thousand messages in my Inbox.


It is a good thing Gmail developed a new approach to process our Gmail Inbox to help us gain more control, improve our response time, productivity and keep up with important matters and due dates.

I received this note from Gmail, which covers key factors of the Priority Inbox that can help us process our Gmail more efficiently:

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Priority Inbox atomatically separate our most important messages, making it easy for us to read and respond to the messages that matter.

 

Getting through your email faster

Try reading and replying to the messages in the "Important and Unread" section first. Mark anything that requires follow-up with a star, then go through the "Everything Else" section. If you leave Priority Inbox, you can return to it by clicking the link next to Inbox on the side navigation of Gmail.   How it works Gmail's servers look at several types of information to identify the email that's important to you, including who you email and chat with most, how often you email with these people, and which keywords appear frequently in the emails you read.

 

Train Priority Inbox

If Priority Inbox makes a mistake, you can use the buttons to correctly mark a conversation as important or not important, and Priority Inbox will quickly learn what you care about most.

• Customize Priority Inbox: You can change what type of email you see in each section (like switching the "Important and Unread" section to just "Important"). Just click on the section headers or visit the Priority Inbox tab under Settings and choose to "customize inbox groups."
• Use filters to guarantee importance: If you want to be absolutely sure that some messages are always marked as important (like email from your boss), you can set up a filter and choose "Always mark it as important."
• Search by importance: If you want to see all the messages that have been marked as important, both read and unread, do a Gmail search for "is:important."
• Switching back to your old inbox: If Priority Inbox isn't for you, you can easily switch back to your normal inbox by clicking "Inbox" on the left or hide Priority Inbox altogether from Gmail Settings.

To learn more about managing your email with Priority Inbox, check out the Gmail Help Center.

Have a cool Friday!

Pretending to Be Busy at Work Can Cause Diarrhea

Jim, my officemate was recently promoted to assistant manager but I guess he couldn't reconcile himself to his new office and position.

Before 5:00 p.m., Mr. Swabe (not his real name), our senior manager, used to drop by at every office on his way out for a little chit-chat. Yesterday, I saw him heading to Jim’s office, so I warned Jim in advance.

To show how important and busy he was, he picked up the phone and then asked Mr. Swabe to have a seat. Jim kept talking on the phone, nodding and saying, "No problem, I can handle that," “Yes,” “Yes, everything is being taken care of, don’t worry.”

After a few minutes he hung up and asked Mr. Swabe what he could do for him.
Before Mr. Swabe could reply, somebody from the building maintenance office suddenly came in and said,  "Sir, I'm here to connect your phone."

Jim suddenly excused himself and ran to the CR and stayed there for an hour.

Just munch your toxic days!

During high school & elementary days, we are forbidden to take in any food or drinks during class or it is not encouraged to eat while studying. But, I came across this learning theory called intake learning in a Manila Bulletin article last May 14 by Henry S. Tenedero entitled “The Stomach – Brain Connection.” He said that intake learners are those who learns best while munching something or doing some mix of eating and learning.

Well, this is not my learning preference during my school days – maybe because it is forbidden, but now, at work, I noticed that I usually get the job done when I have some picka-picka at my computer desk. I easily got tired and usually lose focus during long hours of continuos concentration over some task.

Some do their tasks while listening to their favorite music. In my case, I usually have some peanuts, banana and a cup of coffee to survive a toxic day – which usually falls on Mondays.

Whew! I really hate Mondays - always so toxic. It’s a good thing I can just munch, munch, and munch it away.