Master Your Gmail Inbox Using Labels
The challenge of today is not the acquisition of information but rather it's management. The more effectively we are able to manage our information the better we are able to manage our world.
The sheer volume of digital communications we receive on a daily basis makes it difficult for us to stay on top of everything we need to read and retrieve.
Gmail can help you take back control of our inbox through the use of labels and filter. Labels are metadata tags you place on emails based on the attributes of the communication. You can also later retrieve information based on these same labels.
Labels are like folders but ten times more effective
Labels not only categorize emails but groups them together based on the keywords applied. Labels function like folders in keeping similar information together but unlike folders, you can assign multiple labels to an individual email. This allows the email to be categorized according to different contexts and retrieved according to varying contexts as well. This flexibility equates to faster information retrieval.
How to Create a Label
Creating labels in Gmail is pretty easy.
- Log into the Gmail website.
- Find emails you want to label.
- Click the "Labels" button at the top of the page.
- Type the name of the label you want to create.
- Select whether to nest the label under an existing label.
- Click "Create" to create the new label and apply it to the message.
What Labels Should you Create
So what type of labels should you create? As a general rule, the labels you create should be aligned to specific business cases. You should be able to quickly retrieve the information needed to address typical day to day business situations. With that said your labels generally fall into four categories:
- People
- Functions
- Topics
- Actions
People
Your people labels should be named after the senders of emails. This label can help separate the communications of specific people from other correspondence that the person may have been included on or mentioned. Using people labels to retrieve information is a much more surgical retrieval strategy than relying upon a general search only.
Functions
Function labels are named after:
- departments
- functional groups
- teams
- groups
This label will help you retrieve emails based on the department's or groups from which the people who sent them are from.
Topics
Topic labels are aligned to keywords that indicate:
- projects
- initiatives
- tasks
- business concepts
Topic labels help your retrieve emails that address the day to day issues facing your company.
Actions
Action labels indicate the different activities that are associated with an email. Perhaps you tag emails you need to do a bit of research on before responding as "Research". You may even assign labels that indicate the type of follow up desired such as "Call" or "Meet". The core concept here is that action labels should be tied closely to your workflow.Automate Your Label System With Filters!
Unless you like manually categorizing every bit of email you receive I recommend automating your labeling system using filters. This approach will ensure that your labeling strategy is applied consistently. Manually maintaining your system will greatly limit its effectiveness as there is a good chance labels will be applied inconsistently. Ultimately you will lose faith in your system and stop using it.
Filters are rules that you configure in Gmail that allow you to automatically assign labels to incoming emails based on specific criteria. This strategy saves you time because you do not have to manually maintain your labeling scheme. You will also be able to more quickly categorize, archive and retrieve emails much more quickly
How to Create Filters
- Open Gmail.
- In the search box at the top, click the Down arrow.
- Enter your search criteria.
- At the bottom of the search window, click Create filter with this search.
- Choose what you'd like the filter to do.
- Click Create filter.
Through a combination of labels and filters, Gmail allows you to enhance your productivity. In an age of information, mastery of its categorization and retrieval are foundational skills. Without the right information in the hands of the right people at the right time, we cannot hope to be effective. Gmail makes this goal a more achievable one.
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