Do you feel overwhelmed every time you look at your Gmail inbox? Well, you’re not alone. A lot of people actually struggle with this and they spend a lot of time searching for tips on how to organize Gmail inboxes.
If you are doing the same thing, stop and check out these easy and fast strategies on how to keep your email more organized.
One significant thing that’s probably making your Gmail inbox seem a little scary is that you aren’t using the Archive feature. It’s ideal once you’ve read an email and want to save it for reference.
Archiving a message removes it from your inbox but makes it searchable in Gmail. It’s a great method of stopping your inbox from getting out of control and losing an email you don’t want to get rid of.
With your inbox open, click on a message to highlight it. Then, look for the icon that looks like a file drawer with a downward arrow. That’s the Archive button. Simply click it and you’re done.
Gmail also has a cool labeling feature that groups all current emails into categories that appear on the left of your screen.
Open a message in Gmail and notice the button on the top with an icon that looks like a tag. Click it to add a label to your message or create a new one.
You can use broad categories like Work or School or use very specific ones like Receipts For Online Orders or Emails From My Sister.
Consider those emails your sister sent you. You can create a Gmail rule or filter that automatically sends her messages to that label so that you can read them all at once.
First, type her email address or name into the search box at the top of the Gmail interface. Then, click the downward triangle at the right corner of the box. It brings up other search parameters to try.
See the Create a Filter With This Search option in the right bottom corner. Click it to bring up a dialog box that offers various filter-related preferences. The Apply The Label option near the middle of the options relates to what you’ve just learned.
Notice how the first option (Skip The Inbox) relates to archiving. It’s useful if you want to keep emails but never see them.
To apply a filter to a certain message in your inbox, click the checkbox to its left. Then, choose the More option along the top. Click Filter Messages Like These and enter your specifications.
Ever sign up for something online and feel sure you’ll get a slew of unwanted emails later? Take control by using Gmail aliases. They also work for blocking emails you receive after registering at a site and getting your details sold to a third party.
Gmail ignores emails with plus signs and periods in them. In other words, if your real email is JohnDoe231@gmail.com, you’ll still get an email addressed to JohnDoe+231@gmail.com.
That’s why it’s a good idea to use an alias and then set up a filter to automatically delete any messages addressed to that email. To keep track of what you’re doing, register at a site and provide an email alias with the [Gmail user name] + [Name of website] structure.
Make sure to keep the plus sign between the two portions. Then, immediately make a filter that deletes emails associated with that address.
If emails you subscribe to overrun your inbox, there’s an app for that. It’s called Unroll.me. The free service compiles all subscription emails into one message, allowing you to read them at your convenience. Even better, you can also unsubscribe from the lists with one click, taking a step further in the quest to make your inbox more manageable.
A message from the app is called a Rollup. It groups subscription-related messages by category for easier perusal. Also, you can look more closely at individual emails by going to a dedicated, secure Unroll.me folder in your inbox.
As you can see from these efficient tips, knowing how to organize Gmail inboxes is within your reach. And yes, you really can make progress in only 20 minutes.
The post How To Organize Your Gmail In 20 Minutes (And Keep It That Way) appeared first on Dumb Little Man.
Robert Redford e Jane Fonda – “Il cavaliere elettrico” (The Electric Horseman), 1979
You’re reading 7 Paths to Self-Improvement, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
Self-improvement is a broad field. It can mean being a better person, learning something new, accomplishing more, or simply figuring out how to better enjoy the life you have. Even the inspiration to improve can come from a number of different places: boredom, staleness, recurring problems, or a general feeling of dissatisfaction or inadequacy. But just because you know it’s time for something to change, it’s not always easy to know where to start.
There are plenty of resources out there, but it can be hard to find one that speaks to you and your particular motivations. The internet is full of suggestions, but a quick search shows that it might be too full. During my last motivational quest, looking for “self-improvement ideas” turned into hours of reading, as I skimmed literally hundreds of lists, some of them with only a few items, but others dozens or even hundreds of suggestions long.
Worse, the suggestions were all over the place. Meditate. Learn a new language. Stop biting your nails. (What if you don’t bite them? Should you start and then stop?) Get up earlier and go to bed earlier. (Is that actual improvement, or just shifting things around to better conform with some puritanical code?) After hours of reading, I actually felt more confused about what to do than before I’d started searching.
Eventually I decided to try to organize the suggestions, lumping similar ideas and trends into what became broad categories, which I call the Seven Axes of Development. (Okay, that spells SAD, which isn’t the goal. Ignore that.) They are:
That’s still a lot of material, but having the categories helps. My guess is most of us naturally excel at one or two of them, really struggle with a couple (or several), and the others are somewhere in the middle. There are a few ways you can go from here. One may be to target the weakest areas, because it gives you the opportunity for the greatest improvement. On the other hand, if you’re struggling, maybe picking one of your strongest axes, which are usually more fun and interesting, is a great way to get some easy wins. Or take one of the items in the middle, which is a good candidate for going from mediocre to excellent without too much pain.
Honestly, any of those options could work, but from week to week or month to month, you might rotate through all three tactics, as the mood strikes or life allows.
There’s an advanced technique I’d like to recommend, though. What I did was take this list of axes and build a 30-day challenge, basically speed-dating my way through all the different options and angles, just to make sure I tried them all out a little, in order to better assess how they felt and what my chances of success were. For each axis I came up with three or four different things I could try out in just half an hour. Obviously learning a language in 30 minutes is out, but maybe a meditation session or some reading will tick the Intellectual checkbox, while some exercise or a lengthy stretching session can be a Physical goal for a day. For Organizational you could do a little light decluttering one day, and then some heavy cleaning in that one trouble spot (you probably have one, and know what it is) the next. Interpersonal might involve some quality time with a loved one or calling up someone you’ve fallen out of touch with, and so on.
So, make a list of 30 of these items, distributing them as evenly as possible against all the categories. It’s okay—great, even—to combine them. Playing a sport might include Physical, Interpersonal, and Talented components, for instance. Then, in roughly half an hour per day, (enough to get some things done, but not so much it really derails your life) do one of these things each day 30 days. Ideally you’ll take some notes about your experiences, deciding what you love and what you hate, what’s easy or difficult.
At the end of 30 days, not only will you already feel accomplished, but you’ll have a much better idea of what to pursue in the future. Self-improvement is more of a process than a goal, so there’s always more to do. By using the axes and starting with a 30-day challenge, you can identify blind spots, gain appreciation for the parts you already do well, and set a target on what aspect you want to improve next.
Aaron Rath is a novelist and humorist who nurtures a love for self-inflicted ordeals, such as this 30-day self-improvement challenge, which eventually became The Quirkz Handbook to Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay.
You’ve read 7 Paths to Self-Improvement, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
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Audrey photographed by Bob Willoughby on the set of Two for the Road,1966
Source: By design
First designed in 1963, the Portland Japanese Garden was declared “the most beautiful and authentic Japanese garden in the world outside of Japan” by Nobuo Matsunaga, the former Ambassador of Japan. Today—after three years of construction—the 9.1-acre garden has been expanded by a further 3.4 acres, thanks to the work of Japanese architect Kengo Kuma. Working together with the garden’s curator, Sadafumi Uchiyama, they designed a new “cultural village,” comprising three green roofed structures.
The cultural village imitates a traditional Japanese Monzenmachi—a gate-front town surrounded by sacred temples. The three structures, situated around the Tateuchi courtyard, were designed with nature as their focal point. Kuma explains that he “aimed for a cultural facility like a village, suitable for a human city integrated with nature.”
The largest of the three buildings—the Jordan Schnitzer Japanese Arts Learning Center—is home to a library, gallery, gift shop, and classroom, all of which provide a place for visitors to immerse themselves in traditional Japanese arts and culture. The second building—a garden-house—offers horticulture workshops, while the third—a hillside café—provides an extra place to relax, with a spectacular view of Mt. Hood.
With an environmentally conscious mindset, Kuma and Uchiyama have introduced hundreds of new plants, as well as living roofs to absorb rainwater. To minimize pressure on the city’s sewage system, a stone creek channels waste into a holding tank, which is then slowly released into the sewer. The entire cultural village is heated by 24 geothermal wells, 300 feet below ground, which boost energy efficiency and reduce costs.
The Portland Japanese Garden’s new extension is now open to the public.
Kengo Kuman: Website
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Sig Nordal 