I have learnt a few tricks that help me save considerable amount of time when it comes to email flow. I receive so many emails, many of which do not require any reply/or action i that i just becomes impossible to open them all as i receive them.
I am a huge fan of Gmail. And this is what i have done do improve my productivity with emails flow. The purpose being not to have more than 10 critical mails in my inbox at any time. And it works
- I answer important emails immediately. Generally within the minute. Even if i interrupt something else. Short answers. to the point. no greetings. ni signature. no fuss.
- I have a signature with my name and a greeting. no need to add one for each email i write
- Created rules for all major services' invitations: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter mainly. They all come in a specific folder. This also has an advantage you: dont' receive an email alert in Google Talk each one of those email arrive
- Created a rule for all blog comments/trackbacks. They all come to a specific folder
- All emails in one account: i have forwarded all my email to my principal email accounts and set up "answer from" so i can answer from any of my other email accounts. No time lost to open/close other accounts
- I use keyboard shortcuts. no mouse. this sounds like something useless. but believe me if you deal with more than 100 mail a day you ll understand the problem and the solution. My favorite: C (compose) R (reply) Y (archive). Firefox has a serious problem though with that. When i type "R" and start writing the answer it closes me the message if i do not wait a few seconds
- Right clicking with "Better Gmail": better gmail is the most useful FireFox extension i have had. it improves gmail in many ways, but the killer feature for me is the right click preview that lets you read the content of the email without opening it and even enables to take some action (archive/trash..). Again a small details but great for read only emails like blog comments
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