Get inbox zero in Gmail with these strategies

Keeping a clean inbox is a real challenge. You can put a lot of effort into cleaning it up, getting closer to inbox zero 4 Easy Steps to Achieve and Maintain Inbox Zero in Gmail 4 Easy Steps to Achieve and Maintain Inbox Zero in Gmail Read More, and simply return to start where it started in a month.

The key to getting to inbox zero is to automate as much of the process as you can and rethink your approach to email.

1. Make labels your best friend

Gmail Labels Rediscover Gmail Labels and finally get control of your inbox. Rediscover Gmail labels and finally get control of your inbox. There are plenty of tricks to dealing with email overload, but there's one right under your nose that you might not be using:good old Gmail etiquette. Read More Labels will satisfy that urge to open each new email. If you add one, you'll feel like you've temporarily addressed the wait message by applying a tag.

The following is a suggested set of level one tags to create each morning as you scan your inbox and plan your day:Today, Done, Waiting, Task, Reply .

In addition to these level one labels, which you should apply to all emails that require some type of action, you can create level two labels Based on any of the following:submitter, project/topic, priority, team These level two labels will depend more on your own workflow and needs.

Color code of your labels. That way you can tell how many urgent emails to respond to at a glance.

2. Rules, Rules, Rules

Creating filters or rules How to set up email filters in Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Outlook How to set up email filters in Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Outlook The email filter is your best tool to keep your inbox clean and organized. Here's how to set up and use email filters in Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and Outlook. Read More in your inbox is an easy way to stay organized. You can route mail by automatically applying labels using the criteria of your choice. This criteria can be the same as the two labels of the previous level.

But remember, this is only half the job. The other half is processing the incoming messages, simplified by this process. So how do you actually do that?

Go Settings> Filters and blocked addresses .
Click Create a new filter to start cleaning up your Gmail inbox for good. You must enter at least one of the following:sender, recipient, subject, keywords, excluded keywords, has an attachment, and the size of the email in megabytes, kilobytes, or bytes.
Enter your email address in the From field and click Create filter with this.
You then have several options as to what you can do with that email and you can select more than one. For our purposes, the relevant options are:archive, launch, apply a tag, and delete. Of these, a combination of archiving and tagging will be the most important options for this exercise.
If you want to apply the filter to existing emails in your inbox, check Also apply filter to X matching conversations .
Click Create Filter .

To see this process in action and the second way to access the filter dialog, watch the video below:

Despite its simplicity, you can use Gmail filters to set up extremely robust workflows. 4 Smart Gmail Filters That Help You Deal With Too Many Emails. 4 Smart Gmail Filters That Help You Deal With Too Many Email Bounces And organizing your Gmail inbox is a daily chore. There is a smarter way to do it. Create four basic types of filters in Gmail to sort your emails automatically. Read more . Use filters to do the following:

Create a rule for all emails received from a domain.
Create a rule for all emails except those from a domain.
Create a rule for emails that require you to take an action before deleting them.
Automatically delete emails you don't want to receive.

3. Automate more than just tags

While you can automate labels and more using rules, there are more ways to automate processes in your Gmail inbox in a quest to keep it clean.

Using an automation service like IFTTT in conjunction with Gmail Improve your Gmail experience with these 9 great IFTTT applets Improve your Gmail experience with these 9 great IFTTT applets that Gmail and IFTTT combine to give you the most productive email experience. Read More

Some examples include:

Assign tags to create Trello tasks or ToDoist tasks.
Save Gmail messages to OneNote or Evernote.
Save receipts to a Google spreadsheet.
Assign tags to create a reminder on your phone.
Save Gmail attachments to Google Drive.
- This will do nothing to mitigate storage issues since Gmail and Google Drive storage limits are combined.

Another useful semi-automated process in Gmail is the use of canned responses. Email faster and better with canned responses. Email faster and better with canned responses. Don't have time to prepare lunch? No problem, grab a can. Need a camping chow that won't go amiss? Easy, get some canned food. Tired of typing the same email replies? Try canned emails! Think... Read More These autoresponders take all the work out of emailing the same response over and over again.

To use the feature, go to Settings> Laboratories and enable Prepared Responses . To start creating them, simply create a new message and instead of sending it, click the arrow next to the trash can and go to Prepared Replies> New Canned Response. You can see the process in action in the following video:

Scenarios where you can use them include:

Create intelligent autoresponders.
- Once you enable canned responses, they will be available as a trigger in Gmail filters.
Send the same email multiple times.
Use multiple signatures.

4. Clear subscriptions

If your inbox is a mess, it will take more than a minute to clean it up. In addition to setting up filters for incoming email, you still have to deal with the existing chaos. Set aside 15-20 minutes each day to start cleaning up your subscriptions and adding labels to your messages.

You can do this manually by scanning your inbox, determining which subscriptions you want to keep and which ones you want to delete. When you choose the bulletins to get rid of the network, just do a quick search with the operator. 5 Advanced Gmail Search Operators You Should Know About 5 Advanced Gmail Search Operators You Should Know About Gmail is a nifty webmail client with lots of amazing features. Being a Google service, one of its strengths is obviously search. And that's exactly how Google revolutionized email. In Gmail you don't really have ... Read more from: Accompanied by the sender's email, and delete all emails.

If you prefer to automate the process, there are a few services worth checking out. You can manage your email subscriptions Clean up your inbox:Quickly unsubscribe from multiple newsletters with these tools Clear your inbox:Quickly unsubscribe from multiple newsletters with these tools Unsubscribing from newsletters is more than just spam. Most of the newsletters that fill our inbox don't sell drugs or offer cash prizes, they're genuine newsletters from reputable companies that we subscribe to... Read More services like Unroll.Me.

If you choose to use Unroll.Me, you should know that the company recently came under fire for selling user information. Unroll.me has been caught selling your data. Unroll.me has been caught selling your data. If something is free, there is usually a problem. . And it turns out that Unroll.me is no exception. Read more.

Another way to keep those subscriptions from clogging up your inbox is to use a disposable email address. Need a disposable email address? Try These Great Services Need a disposable email address? Try These Great Services Need to send or receive email without using your real address? Here are some great services that let you do just that. Read More

5. Keeping inbox zero

After cleaning your inbox, there are some basic steps to maintain a clean inbox 5 Action Steps to Cure Your Zero Email Frenzy Inbox 5 Action Steps to Cure Your Zero Email Frenzy Inbox Inbox Zero is one of the most popular buzzwords. To truly solve your email problems, you need to go beyond Inbox Zero and address the underlying issues. Read more :

Turn off social media email notifications.
Limit the time spent on email. Determine how much time you can spend on email each day and don't exceed it. This will help prioritize replying to and archiving important emails.
Write down the exceptions to step 2. If your boss asks you to reply to an email, you can't ignore it. Review all the reasons why you exceeded the time limit and eliminate the ones that don't matter.
Only respond when you have to. If the message is two or three words long, you probably don't need to send it unless confirmation is required.

What tips or tricks do you use to maintain zero inbox in your Gmail account? Save your Gmail messages as PDF files and arrive in your inbox. a local backup of your email, this nifty extension makes it easy by saving your emails as PDF files. Read more ? Do you think it is a useless exercise? Let us know in the comments.