How Google Inbox Changed the Way I Use Email
Google polarized the Gmail crowd with the release of Inbox . For some, it was confusing and useless. However, for people like me, Inbox is a breath of fresh air. Here’s how it changed my workflow and why I think it’s worth giving it a try.
Before Inbox came out, I was a pretty avid Gmail user. I used filters, labels, and asterisks to carefully organize my emails according to my needs at the time. Of course, this system entailed a lot of improvements as my needs changed. I quickly accumulated too many shortcuts and most of my “email management” ended up happening outside of Gmail. Once I used Unroll.me to get rid of the junk I was getting, half of my filters were no longer needed.
This is not to say that Gmail has never been useful. I loved it, but I needed something that would allow me to prioritize certain emails like I did starring, while still allowing me to organize and quickly process emails that were important but not urgent .
Enter the mailbox.
Packages combine tabs, filters and labels into one great package
One of the biggest differences between Gmail and Inbox is that your email is grouped into what are called “packages”. You can think of kits as Gmail filters on steroids. You can create complex rules that determine what is included in a package, even when the package appears in your inbox. You can also uninstall the entire package with just one click. This is Inbox’s greatest superpower.
Here’s an example of how this works in my workflow: I regularly receive emails from Lifehacker Editor-in-Chief Whitson Gordon and our Deputy Editor Alan Henry. They review my features, give me editing notes, and sometimes give me comic reading tips. I added both of them to the package so that all their emails appear together (as shown above). This has several advantages:
- I can focus on one task at a time: when the package is open, it pushes all other emails aside. The only things I will see in the Lifehacker Management package are emails from my editors. It serves the same function as Gmail Tabs, but with much more direct control and customization.
- I can delete multiple emails at once: Inbox comes with several pre-packaged packages, including several that reflect Gmail tabs. Packages like Promotions and Trips bundle up a bunch of related emails making them easy to work with. When I need to travel, my flight, hotel and car rental emails are stored in one place.
- I can delay doing unimportant tasks: I get a few promotional emails from sites like NewEgg or Amazon that I really want to receive. However, I don’t need to check them multiple times throughout the day. I can set up a package of promotions so that it only appears once a day, at 7 am, skims through them very quickly, and then closes them. I will not receive any news of this package until the next day.
Packages are a very different way of working with email than Gmail’s shortcuts, filters, or tab system. It takes the best qualities of each and combines them into one mega-smart organizational system. All emails from my boss are grouped in one place, my promotions in another, and my purchase history in another. Instead of a list of messages, I see a list of tasks. Answer my boss, track my packages, and if I have time, check out what’s new on Amazon. Everything is much simpler.
Now that I have a to-do list in my inbox, reminders and snooze fit perfectly into it.
The task-oriented approach to packages has changed the way I think about email. Instead of just seeing it as a list of messages to go through, I see everything as work to be done. Inbox encourages this by putting your reminders right in your messages. Google Now already has some nice reminder features . You can say “Remind me to check Lifehacker every morning” and your phone will give you a notification. Since you will likely ignore this, the same reminder will appear in your Inbox until you mark it complete.
This elegantly integrates with the already adopted task-oriented approach to Inbox email. An email from my boss is a reminder to reply to him, so I don’t need to create a to-do list to deal with this, but I need a reminder to research the idea I had in the middle of the night last night. … Inbox is not only where I receive external messages, it is where I see what needs to be done today. Best of all, I don’t have to spend time putting together carefully selected to-do lists. Just talk to my phone and trust that it will show up later.
“But Eric, won’t that be overwhelming? Everything you need to do in one place? “I can hear you crying. That’s right! If all you had to do was on one giant list, you couldn’t read it. Luckily, this is where a snooze can come in handy. You can already set specific times for When you receive an email, you can “snooze” it until a certain time.
Let’s take another example. Let’s say I booked a table at my local bar for Wednesday at 7pm. I don’t need to be constantly reminded of this in my inbox forever, but I also don’t want to forget about it. I may delay receiving the confirmation email until the day of booking. It will not be in my mailbox until I need it. Once he gets back, it’s another item on my to-do list for the evening.
It takes time to get used to this kind of thinking. However, once you start doing it, it seems completely natural. Receive a shipping notification? Set it aside until the day it is due to arrive. Need to remember to do something next month? Tell that to your phone. Do you want to forget the letter from your boss? Pin it to the top.
Now that I’m used to inbox, my work email sucks
Google has allowed companies using Google Apps to allow Inbox. Unfortunately, for technical reasons beyond my control, it is not yet available for my work email. So I have an Inbox in my personal email and the old Gmail method for my work email. This contrast, in my opinion, underlines how much more complex email was still.
In no particular order, here are the problems I have with my current work email that I could solve with Inbox:
- Sorting email messages is a chore. Having one button to clear all packages is something like a touchscreen phone. You do not understand how important this is until you have it, and then you cannot live without it. When I get a bunch of junk mail in my Inbox, I can look at the subject lines, press one button and they disappear. In Gmail, I either need to create complex filters or make sure I don’t accidentally add an important email from someone in the company.
- I can flag important emails but they get dropped anyway. The main reason packages help is because they put a bunch of emails on one line. I use labels to highlight messages from certain key people in the company, but in the morning I might have twenty emails from people I don’t care about, and I don’t see an important message from my boss until I go to the next page. … With the packages configured correctly, all of these messages take up one line and my boss’s emails stand out.
- I can forget important emails. Gmail doesn’t have a built-in way to remind you of an email later. While some clients like Boomerang may fill this particular hole, it still annoys me that I have to use completely separate apps to remind myself that I need to respond to something next week.
Of course, all this is from personal experience. Email means different things to different people. A few years ago, I didn’t even get enough emails to lose sight of him, so the Inbox would have been too many. What works for me may not work for you.
However, I found that where I am now, Inbox offers a much more useful approach. It’s not the best interface for the way you’ve always used email. If you try to use Inbox in the same way that you have always used Gmail, you will not like it. Inbox is not Gmail. This is a completely different way to get things done. If you can view your messages (and reminders) as a bunch of tasks to work on throughout the day, and learn to schedule or procrastinate those you don’t need at the moment, you’ll likely find that Inbox does a great job of doing it. giving you exactly the messages you need when you need to work with them, and quickly deletes everything else.