10 Email Hacks to Improve Your Productivity!

As working professionals, we have to manage hundreds of email threads daily. Many spend most of their working time managing emails as they pile up in their inboxes with each passing day. As a result, it is challenging to keep your inbox well-organized.

According to McKinsey’s analysis, professionals spend 28% of their workweek reading and writing (or responding to) emails.

Many professionals opt for email management tools to spend less time on emails. However, the reputed tools are expensive and only affordable for some working professionals.

Fortunately, Gmail has built-in tools or features that help you clean your cluttered inbox and manage emails efficiently.

Here, I will share some effective email hacks I follow daily to keep my inbox organized and clutter-free.

1. Unsubscribe Unnnecessary Emails

You get bulk emails daily from retailers, organizations, and other newsletters from the services you have signed up for or subscribed to. These emails genuinely create chaos in your working emails.

Maintaining separate email addresses for personal and professional purposes would be best.

However, you use numerous services related to your business and get newsletters from them daily. Unsubscribe the unnecessary services to avoid receiving daily or weekly newsletters.

If you have subscribed to many services, you can use Unroll. Me to get a list of services you have signed up for and unsubscribe from the unwanted ones.

2. Use Keyboard Shortcuts

Generally, we use common shortcuts — Command-A: select all, Command-C: copy, Command-V: paste, Command-X: cut, etc.

More interestingly, Gmail users have the provision to use some advanced set of keyboard shortcuts. To enable these shortcuts,

Go to Settings → General → Keyboard Shortcuts.

The Option for keyboard shortcuts is turned off by default. When you turn it on, you have a set of shortcuts to use:

• C — start a new message
• Shift-C — start a new message in a new window
• D — start a new message in a new tab
• F — forward a message
• # — delete a message
• Shift-I — mark a message as read
• Shift-U — mark a message as unread
• Command-S — save a message

In the beginning, remembering these shortcuts may take time and effort. You can automate these shortcuts using a Google Chrome extension — Keyrocket. It is a free productivity Google Chrome extension. It helps you learn keyboard shortcuts while using Gmail.

3. Enable the ‘undo’ Option

You often draft an email, hit the send button, and realize immediately that the Email is incomplete or requires adding extra details. In such a case, you want to undo your action of sending the Email. Fortunately, you can do that!

Gmail provides an option of ‘undo’ to return the sent Email. To enable this feature,

Go to Settings → General → Undo.

Turn on the Option and set the time interval. Within that interval, you can finally undo your Email, do the necessary edits, and send it. The maximum time limit is 30 seconds.

4. Use Templates

We have to connect with clients and stakeholders frequently, but the email structure remains the same except for a few tweaks.

Instead of moving inside your inbox, create different templates for different purposes. This significantly reduces your time and improves productivity. In addition, you can create emails in bulk using templates with just a few tweaks. In such a case, you go through your inbox to find a specific email structure.

Here is how you can create a template in Gmail:

To set the Option of templates, go to Settings → Advanced Tab → Templates. Enable the template option and save the changes.

5. Archive Emails

To make your inbox look clean and organized without moving emails to trash, you can archive them. Doing this will not create any chaos while replying to important emails. Also, you can track archived emails at any time by searching them using the search option.

Hover over the Email you want to archive; on the right side, you will notice the first Option for archiving.

6. Use the Filter Option

This Option comes in handy when you want to find an email but forget from whom you received or sent it or don’t remember the subject line.

On the right side of the search option on the Gmail interface, you will see the filter icon. Click on it, and a screen will appear featuring the parameters based on which you can apply the filter.

Using the filter, you can get emails based on the name of the person who sent the Email, the words appearing in the email body, the attachments with the Email, size, etc.

Enter the details you know about the Email you are searching for, create the filter, and hit Search.

Once you find the desired Email, you can star it, mark it as important or unimportant, archive it, mark it as read, or assign a label.

7. Create Folders

The emails we receive and send contain essential and sensitive information. You may be at a significant loss or risk if they get deleted accidentally. Also, when important emails mix with unimportant ones, there are great chances of unnoticing them. To avoid such situations, you must create folders to organize your emails.

Creating folders helps you manage and prioritize emails. For example, you can organize emails based on categories — high-priority emails into informational or action-based, team emails into colleagues, reports, etc., and function emails into HR, finance, etc.

8. Use an Email Scheduler

Email scheduler has eliminated the hassle of waking up late or early in the morning to send important work emails. You can schedule emails at any time without worrying about the time.

Draft the Email and set the date and time. Your Email will be sent to the recipient at the scheduled date and time.

To schedule an email, click on the icon beside the Send button, and the Schedule send option appears. Later, you can set the date and time.

9. Use a Grammar Browser Extension

Spelling mistakes or typos in emails leave a person in an awkward situation. To avoid such awkward occurrences, it is advisable to use a grammar checker browser extension. The best pick for this is Grammarly.

It is a typing assistant helping people to catch their spelling, punctuation, and grammar mistakes. In addition, it analyzes the tone of your email message and provides better alternative phrases.

With Grammarly, you can ensure that your Email is 100% free from grammatical errors.

10. Set Time Aside to Review Batch Emails

There is no such time that you don’t receive emails. Whenever you receive an email and read it, it hampers your ongoing work.

Rather than checking your emails constantly as you receive them, dedicate specific time to review all emails you receive. Whether in the morning, afternoon, or at night, the time that suits you the best.

Put These Email hacks into Practice!

These were a few productive email hacks. When you put these hacks into Practice, you will notice that the hassle of organizing and managing emails reduces significantly. Also, you can boost your work productivity by not getting distracted by emails.