How I Stopped Drowning in my Gmail Inbox

without these two techniques, i'd be drowning in emails:

? custom stars ?

?? boolean search strings ??

i can't lie - i used to keep track of emails i had to act on by starring them and marking them as unread. that left me with dozens of "unread" emails crowding my screen and mind, and confused me when new emails came rolling in like high tide.

i knew i had to find another way of dealing with the deluge.

i dug into all the gmail settings, searching for something better - and boy, did i find it!

gmail's starred emails feature is fantastic - but not many users know that it's actually a deeply customizable productivity tool in disguise!

check this out:

1. on desktop, open gmail & click the settings gear in the upper right
2. click "See all settings"
3. scroll down (in the "General" tab) until you see the section "Stars:"
4. drag and drop your own custom order of stars and icons.
5. save your changes at the bottom of the page

to use the stars:

1. on an email in your gmail inbox, click the star. the first icon will appear.

2. if you click it again and again, the next star will appear.

3. once you move your mouse away and back, clicking the star (or icon) will de-star the email, letting you start fresh from the beginning of the cycle.

whenever i open an email, i star it according to my personal system:

• blue-info (just an FYI)
• green-check (nothing else to do in this thread)
• yellow-bang (need to do something)
• orange-guillemet (have forwarded / delegated)
• red-bang (REALLY need to do something)

and whenever i need a complete sense of what i need to do, i use this search string to pull up all unread emails as well as any email (incl. unread) starred with a yellow or red icon.

label:unread OR has:yellow-bang OR has:red-bang

which is exactly what i need.

i'm curious - is this anything like your system? do you have any tips to trade back? let me know in the comments!!