Have you ever had a day when you decide to check your house’s mail box to see if there is anything important there but, instead you find inundation of useless mail, brochures and promotional material lying there for ages. And in this heap of unwanted papers, you find that one important letter which you had been waiting for, for quite a long time. How frustrating.

Well, I had a similar experience the other day, but with my virtual mail. I have been using Gmail since time immemorial. It has always given me a comfortable mailing experience. However, lately I got too comfortable, rather lazy towards my incoming emails. And so it happened that some of my very important emails got buried under a heap of less important emails.

Recommended Reading: 18 Helpful Tools For Better Gmail Experience

I decided to take the leap of courage and manage my inbox to ‘Zero Inbox’ level, once and for all. In this article I am going to share some useful tips I’ve uncovered, and other good-to-know additions about how to maintain your Gmail inbox without having to use additional software or plugins.

What is ‘Zero Inbox’?

For a regular email user who sends and receives dozens (even hundreds) of emails every day, ‘zero inbox’ may sound as mythical and unreal as a unicorn or Santa Claus, or a unicorn-riding Santa Claus. However, to be more precise ‘zero inbox’ is not about having no emails, it is rather about maintaining your inbox to a level that every type of email has its place and doesn’t clutter out the main Inbox.

Like millions of other Gmail users, I used to think that it’s absolutely natural for an email to be received and kept in the Inbox. On the other hand, productivity experts say that the inbox should be used for the most important emails. All other types of less important emails should go to specifically assigned folders.

Origins

The term ‘zero inbox’ was initially coined by productivity preacher Merlin Mann, who runs a famous productivity blog 43 Folders. In the year 2007 at the Google Tech Talk, Mann gave an hour-long video presentation on Inbox Zero.

His basic idea is to manage your inbox through a self-motivated email filtering routine without having to use any additional plugins or software. Although Mann’s idea gave basis of email maintenance, however some other experts have built upon this concept and gave even more helpful tips for achieving ‘zero inbox’.

Useful Tips for Achieving ‘Zero Inbox’

Time never stops, and it is the same with incoming emails. This is something I have learnt through time and experience – turning a blind eye towards incoming emails will not solve the problem, but will rather keep gnawing at you.

Therefore in order to get rid of the distraction caused by piling up emails, one should work towards, or at least try to achieve ‘zero inbox’. It is totally understandable that taking time out for something (apparently) as trivial as an email inbox may sound absurd, but following the below-mentioned tips will give you some easy ways to do it well.

1. Dare to Delete

In order to manage your inbox you need to be mature in your decisions and be wise enough to delete the emails you don’t want. Most people approach emails like their wardrobe in which they keep some out-dated clothes in a hope that their fashion may revive someday. For them it is better to be safe, than to be broke from buying new attire when you have some that still can work in your closet.

Similarly people tend to keep absolutely useless emails with a thought that they might want to go back to them one day. For such people I would suggest that although it is good to keep a record of important emails, however, deciding what is unimportant and then deleting it is the very first thing to do.

Read Also: How To Find And Sort Gmail Emails By File Size

2. OOR – Out of Office Response

The worst thing about going on a vacation is to come back and find hundreds of pending emails in your inbox. To avoid this people do all sorts of things including, a regular check on emails throughout the vacation. What they probably don’t know is that there is a special Out of Office Response (OOR) feature in almost all email service providers including Gmail.

All they have to so is to write a generic email saying that you are on vacation and will respond to all emails once you are back, and then set an auto-response to all the incoming emails. This way when you come back, there will be less of a mess to deal with in your inbox.

3. Weekly Operation Cleanup

If you are too busy throughout the week to respond and filter the emails are they are received, take a few hours out once every week to cleanse your inbox and get it down to the zero.

You don’t need to set a time and take a quiet room to do so. You can do your inbox cleanup while travelling on a train or bus, or when you are just sitting and waiting for someone, or even while standing in a queue for coffee. If you have time to game or chat with a friend, you also have time to clear some emails.

Read Also: Gmail On The IPhone: Google’s App Or Apple’s Mail App

4. Filters and Labels

Gmail has this special feature for filters and labels that gives you the best solution for organizing your incoming emails. You can create different filters for different types of emails on the basis of senders, subject or even keywords. You can also customize the Filters with additional instructions like ‘Skip the Inbox’ or ‘Delete’ when received.

This way you can archive your emails under different Labels where they are saved for record-keeping. This feature is like moving something into a filing cabinet for safekeeping, rather than putting it in the trash bin. You can also categorize the Labels according to their nature like To Read, To Do or To Respond etc. It will make it easier for you to prioritize your email responses.

5. Unsubscribe the Unwanted, Mute Notifications

E-newsletters are also one of the most clutter-causing things that could pile up in your Inbox and cause your important emails to get ignored. You can use managers like Unroll.me or if you don’t want to receive any e-newsletters or promotional material by a company, service or social media website then unsubscribe from it. Every newsletter or brochure etc. has an ‘unsubscribe’ option at the bottom of the email, and all you have to do is to click it to be rid of it.

Similarly, all social media websites like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or StumbleUpon etc have ‘Change Email Setting’ option or the ‘Mute’ feature at the bottom that can give you a one-click solution to manage the email pile up caused by their email notifications.

Read Also: How To Check Your Gmail Stats With Gmail Meter

Conclusion

No matter which walk of life we belong to, emails have become an important part of our daily communication. However, with this blessing comes some complications as well, and one of these is a flooded inbox. This may seem quite a trivial issue, however looking at hundreds of unread emails causes frustration and distraction that affects your daily productivity.

Different people have different approaches, therefore there are no set patterns to manage your inbox, and neither is achieving ‘zero inbox’ a one-time thing. It is totally up to you to make an effort every now and then and maintain a well-managed inbox.

Marketers are looking for great content and the writers that provide it. This does not mean that the freelance content writer is the king of the hill. The content editor fills that role. Editors make necessary changes to a writer’s work to ensure they follow certain house styles of the establishment or blog they represent. This gives all text published at the site the same consistency and palatability that ensures readers keep coming back for more.

But if the editor can do it, so can you… right? You have the same command of grammar and syntax, you are the expert on the topic you wrote and it’s going to be your name on the post anyway. And we’re pretty sure the editor is also ‘only human’. So why go through the hassle and slow down the publishing process? Why not just self-edit?

Recommended Reading: Confessions Of A Web Editor – An Inside Look

Self-Editing Freelance Writer

There are rumors of a new kind of content writer. They say that this new and improved content writer can edit their own content. After all, an editor does not need another editor so why could there not be a self-editing content writer – a writer who runs quality checks on his or her own posts. When you get right down to it, no one knows the material better than the writer, correct?

The idea of a self-editing freelance content writer would be a great asset for any website or blog. It will cut down on the need for an extra man/woman on the team, the editor. Transferable mistakes will be greatly reduced, there would be no slowdowns caused by a conflict of opinions and we’d get more content published in more regular intervals.

Recommended Reading: Useful Tips and Guidelines to Freelance Writing

Why It Can’t Work

On paper, it looks like a workable idea but in reality, it’s a dud. I know many content writers who try to self edit to the best of their abilities, myself included. Unfortunately, I do not personally know of any who can do it with a high level of consistency.

During a career span of just over 33 years, I have learned a few things about editing. The gist of it: I have seen enough to know that I would not want the job. Here’s why:

Seeing Is Believing

Our brains can trick us into believing there are words on the page that are not really there. We become so intent on the writing that when we read through it in our first edit, our brain fills in the gaps where the missing words are without us realizing it. Mistakes escape through the filters, points go haywire, and structure loses structure.

Recommended Reading: Tips And Tricks For Writing Fast (And Professionally!)

The trick to getting around this is to put the writing down for several hours. By doing this, we begin to distance ourselves from the writing. The longer the cooling period, the more we forget. By the end of the waiting period, we will be reading the piece as a reader, not the writer. And that’s where we find all the weird mistakes we miss out during our self imposed edits. Don’t take my word for it, try it for yourself.

Jack Of All Trades

We may be the experts of the topic we wrote about however that probably means we lack in other aspects such as the intricate preferences of the readers of the site. To conquer that, you need a lot of data, a lot of experience with a niche group, or psychic powers. Editors usually have one of the three.
They know where to focus, what to take out, what to put in, and how to enhance a particular post for their readers. It’s their job to know.

For us, all we have to do is be an expert in our topics. When guest blogging, we don’t even have to worry about SEO, CRO, link building, inserting back links, when to publish the post for maximum exposure, social marketing, and dozens of other considerations to maximize our content successfully. Now, aren’t you glad that there are editors on the Web?

Remember that editors have to be natural management specialists, often managing numerous guest bloggers, teams of content writers, and marketers with their eager, often manic campaigns. They need to know which strategy works for which niche market, and how to advise their writers. Speaking of which…

Read Also: Marketing Your Blog: 10 Essential Tips You Should Know

Writer Know Thyself

Even more important than intimate knowledge of the blog or website’s inner workings is the self-editing content writer’s knowledge himself or herself. The reason the world has so few true self-editing writers is because there are not that many people who can be brutally honest with themselves. A handful of those are their own worst critic, essentially crippling themselves before any of their work sees light. That’s not good either.

Read Also: Confessions Of A Web Editor – An Inside Look

To self-edit, the Writer must know how to be brutally honest, how to put the integrity of the written piece before the writer, and sometimes, how to walk away from good material. To write what you consider being the purest, most perfect paragraph, only to find during the editing process that it does not contribute enough to the post to be kept in, means you have to make a tough decision.

Can you… Cut it?

The true editor would make the cut without the slightest hesitation and only after considering all other alternatives. For obvious reasons, an editor who is not you will do a better job in being completely objective with the material. It’s almost entirely easier to let someone else do the dirty job.

Read Also: Jack Of All Trades Vs. Master Of One: A Designer’s Perspective

Still Want To Self-Edit?

After all that is said and done, there is one last thing to add. The content editor can do a job that is only as good as the writer can. In other words, if the raw material was weak to begin with, there is only so much the editor can do before he or she has to give up. After all, even with really good, flawless content, there is still a lot to do in post-editing to ensure that the writer gets all the limelight he or she deserves.

So take this relationship as more of a symbiotic one, one where you the writer has to depend on the editor, and the editor on your dedication to the craft to produce a true piece of writing that readers will love and benefit from.

Task managing/project management is necessary to give a clear view of your or your team’s schedule. There are many web tools for task management out in the web but most of them have very plain user interfaces, which is why we are going to feature a fun one in this post.

DropTask is a web tool for task management which changes the way you manage your tasks. Leaving behind the normal user interface that task management apps have, DropTask has replaced it with a mind mapping style and colorful user interface.

Recommended Reading: 10 Freelance Tools For Project Management And Planning

Organized Your Task & Projects

To start, browse over to DropTask. You can sign up for a new account, or simply connect it with your Facebook or Google account. You need an account to be able to use DropTask.

With DropTask, users can create individual tasks and set a specific color for it. Instead of having normal boxes for tasks, DropTask displays the task in a more visual way.

Task Labelling

For each created task, users can set the status of the task to ‘not started’, ‘in progress’, ‘hold on’ or ‘completed’. You can do the same for priorities: ‘very high’, ‘high’ or none. The label comes in different colors which allow users to quickly detect which task needs more attention.

The tasks can also be made larger or smaller by changing the effort settlings to large, medium or small. The higher the effort, the bigger the task’s circle.

Users can also add a sub-task under the main task for reminder purposes. With DropTask you can attach multiple files on the chosen task. The files can be chosen from the computer or you can choose the files from your Dropbox or Google Drive account.

And for each task you can set the task due date.

Other than individual tasks, users can also create groups for the tasks. Like creating individual tasks, users can set a specific color to represent the group. If there are any individual tasks that belong in the group, you can simply drag the individual task into the group circle.

When an individual task is placed under a group, the task color will follow the group color.

Collaborate

Users can invite collaborators to join the current task or project. By sending an email invitation the receiver would need to register for an account on DropTask to be able to join the project.

When the person accepts the invitation you can assign them to the task by dragging their name to the task.

On the right bar, participants can leave their comments or browse through the task timeline. The timeline displays all the changes that have been made onto the tasks.

Viewing Option

There are three different ways to view your projects:

Group view displays only the group with the tasks in it.

List view displays the tasks according to its priority level.

And lastly, Activity view displays all the changes that have been made. If you want a more detailed view you can choose to view only comments, attachments or completed tasks.

Conclusion

DropTask is a fun way to manage your task and projects. It is easy to understand the current tasks as DropTask adapts the visual way of displaying the task and projects instead of having the common checked box style. And with the collaboration feature it is easy to invite team members into a project.

It would have been better if there is a smartphone app for it so that users can access it from their smartphone. Hopefully this will be added soon.