Filters for Gmail have turned out to be my email savior. I use them to:

  • Increase speed of response to customers
  • Stop losing things my boss asks me to do
  • Increase my productivity by saving time

Before I discovered Gmail filters, I was receiving messages from co-workers, supervisors, customers, and automated messengers all to one inbox, no separation.
I needed a way to separate my messages in my current inbox, without having to create more work for me.

Using filters for Gmail allowed me to increase my productivity on the job and save loads of time without having to use a third party product.

Here’s an example of how I filter emails from my supervisor so I can work more productively with him. Anytime he sends me an email it’s given a “label” called “Supervisor”. Labels are Gmail’s equivalent to folders that can be used to organize messages.

Step 1:

To get started, I went to “Settings” in my gmail account by clicking the gear on the right-hand corner.

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After that I clicked on “Filters and Blocked Addresses” and selected “ Create New Filter”

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This is where the fun began.

Step 2:

Next, I had to figure out how to weed out the emails from my boss.

I narrowed down how I wanted to weed out the emails from my boss.

What better way to do this than my supervisor’s emails address?

So I typed in my supervisor’s email in the “From” field for the. You can see this in box below.

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Once I was done I  clicked “Create Filter with this Search” to move on to the next step.

Step 3

Now I needed to decide what filters for Gmail I wanted to use.

First of all, I absolutely did not want my boss’ emails to keep being swarmed by all the other messages I get every day.

So, I chose to let it “Skip the Inbox (Archive it)”

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Since my email was going to be archived, I knew needed it to go somewhere I could access it fast.
This is where labeling came to the rescue.
Labeling allowed me to create a separate inbox all together.

I did this by checking off “Apply Label” and naming my new label as Supervisor.

2015-10-30_15-30-04The new label I made was put on the left-hand side of my Gmail account under all the other inboxes.
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After I was  done I clicked “ Create Filter” to save all the work I just finished.

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Viola! That how I finally created a new inbox for my supervisor’s email.

Here are some more inboxes I decided to create:

  • Co-workers
  • Customers
  • Long-time Customers
  • Support Questions

With these inboxes in place and my main inbox cleared from clutter I became an unstoppable machine.

I saved time, kept up-to-date with work, and kept the customers happy. I even had enough time to write this blog post.

The best part of all this is, you can do it. Follow my guide and start using filters for Gmail today. It will make you work life a whole lot easier. I can talk from first hand experience.

 

 

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