I use two Gmail accounts. One is my primary and I’ve setup filters to screen out most junk mail to a junk mail folder and mail from important people to a small number of folders. In this account, instead of deleting e-mail, I mark it read once I’ve processed it. It’s quick and easy, yet it leaves all my important mail in my account for fast searching.

I have a second e-mail account that I use for subscriptions, deals, and coupons. Using Gmail’s great filter capability, I have each subscription come to its own folder. Using the mark it read feature, I can quickly see what subscriptions I want to read and mark uninteresting ones off. 

On my home computer I use Thunderbird as my e-mail interface which works great with the Gmail groups. Gmail is great at dealing with spam. I check the spam filter a couple of times a week, and rescue any wayward docs before deleting. Once or twice a year, I delete mass notification e-mails and do a general cleanup.

Overall this works great and it allows me to have a robust and searchable database of important conversations.

The biggest thing that has helped me is to streamline the relationship between my task management and my Email. For me, I don’t get a high volume of Emails – but most take a small amount of action on my part (other than just replying). So Email management, for me, is really about task management.

If you get that much email maybe get a VA? When I look at this post I think of the Four-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss, he talks about this very subject.

Congrats on speaking at Blog World Expo, I know Pat Flynn is also speaking there! I look forward to getting the new book!

I just started listening to the podcast. The English language does not give me the ability to communicate just how much I appreciate being pointed to Downcast.

I answered yes to every single question you asked at the beginning of the podcast.

One thing I notice lately is a lot of email systems don’t unsubscribe. I have several newsletters, some from fairly reputable sources, that no matter how many times I click the unsubscribe link, it doesn’t take. I’ve started marking several of them as spam.

I bought a vitamin product last month, and started getting 6-10 emails a day from the company. It wouldn’t take my unsubscribe request, so I had to mark it as spam.

Michael, about the single archive folder, which I do use: have you ever hit a problem with it? At work, I’m running into a lot of trouble finding messages. For some reason, the really important stuff seems to come in under innocuous subjects.

Two great tools for Gmail users…

The E-mail Game (http://emailga.me) is great for getting to inbox zero in a fun and efficient way. It pulls up each e-mail in front of you, one at a time, and you can choose what to do with it – reply, archive, delete or boomerang (archive for now, return to your inbox at a specified later time, marked as unread). Admittedly, boomerang can give you an excuse to postpone actually dealing with an e-mail, but it can also give you a way to bring an e-mail back to top of mind when you may be more prepared to do something about it.

Unroll.me (http://unroll.me) is still in beta mode. I have a few invitations left, so message me if you want one… basically, this tool looks at all your e-mail and takes an inventory of who is sending you stuff. From there, you can choose to add however many senders you want to a roll-up e-mail that you’ll get once a day, kind of like a digest as opposed to separate messages. This is a great way to cut down on the bulk that often hits your inbox.

Thanks for this helpfull episode.

Google can’t find a Windows-alternative for KeyCue… Too bad for me. But there are lot’s of solutions:

- Fingertips. Open your applications, documents, and favorite websites from the keyboard. Expand your most typed texts by typing acronyms. It’s especially made for not-using the mouse. And it’s freeware.

- AutoHotkey, a simple tool to make your own hotkeys for about every (repeating) keystrokes and mousemoves. Simple macro-coding (even for beginners) and lots of resources on the net. It’s freeware too.

The good news about KeyCue is that it will work on Windows 8 (http://www.freenew.net/windows/keycue-52/42375.htm)

Mobile Solution

Love the podcast, and I noticed that one of your readers/listeners had asked about how to handle/process e-mails on your mobile device.  Because I like to clean out my inbox as quickly as I can, I came up with the following solution:

I have a work e-mail and a personal e-mail, so I created a”Processed Mail” folder for all e-mail on my laptop, a “Processed Mobile” on my work server and a “Processed Cloud” folder on my personal server.

If I am out and about and can processes an e-mail or put the action on a to-do list, I simply move the e-mail to the respective folder on the server.  For example, if I receive a message for work that requires an action, I do the action and then move the e-mail to the “Processed Mobile” folder on the server.

At the end of the day, I go to my folders on the servers and simply move all contents over to the “Processed Mail” folder on my laptop. 

I know this may seem excessive – Michael Hyatt suggested that he likes to wait till he gets back to the office/laptop to process e-mail – however, I am trying to build behavior.  Historically, I put things off.  This process helps me build the behavior.

Hope this helps.

Peace,

Blair

One thing that I think is important for the conversion from physical keyboards to touchscreen keyboards is this: relax and type.  Most people are used to a physical device and develop a psychological attachment to the feedback, but it’s not an actual problem with the device.  I got challenged by a BB user to a typing test after a meeting once and was able to complete the typing faster (albeit with some auto-correct mistakes) than the physical keyboard because I’m confident in the ability of my device to cope with my speed and not waiting for feedback.  I had an iPhone G1, then got several BBs for work, and now have an android and the problem is NOT the keyboard – it’s the comfort level of the user almost every time.  Have someone time you and try to speed type to beat the clock: you’ll be surprised at how fast you really are.

Additionally: for iPad users, make sure that you at least try (for a week?) setting the keyboard to be split.  You’ll not reach your thumbs out as far to reach the middle keys and you’ll type faster.

I’ve started using http://www.powerbotapps.com/ to send gmail entries into Evernote.

You can forward emails through Evernote, but it bothers me that you end up with the “FWD” in the note title, as well as your signature and everything at the top. I love the look that Powerbot gives your note from the email. It’s a nice clean format.