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Email Organization: Organizing Your Email with Filters and Labels

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Does your inbox leave you feeling overwhelmed? Use these simple tips for organizing your email using filters and labels!

Hi, it’s Bev from Linkouture again. You may remember my jewelry tutorial from last month. This month I’m sharing some organizing tips…specifically tips on organizing your email. As a small business owner and mom to a toddler, staying organized is crucial to me. 

I’m going to let you in on a little secret of how I keep my world in order: Google.

I find Google products, including Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Calendar, to be essential for keeping myself and my family organized. If I don’t write things down and keep them in one space, I will never remember them or find them.

I’m also all about breaking things down and labeling them. I find this to be especially important for big, unwieldy things like checking my email. Today I’m going to help you to tackle and organize your Google inbox with two of my favorite tools: labels and filters.

Does your inbox leave you feeling overwhelmed? Use these simple tips for using filters and labels to get your Gmail organized.

Organizing Your Email

[Tweet “Overwhelmed by your inbox? Use filters and labels to organize your #Gmail! #emailorganizing”]

I have all of my email, including my business email, go to one inbox. While on the one hand it’s really convenient because it means I only have to lot into one place to check it, it can also be a little overwhelming sometimes.

Every day I’m inundated with more emails than I could possibly go through. To make it more manageable, I have systems in place for my Gmail using labels and filters to help me keep it organized.

I’m also a visual person. I like creating labels with different color tags for different emails and projects so I can easily scan my email to see to what my messages pertain. For example, if anyone sends me an email to my business email address, Gmail automatically labels it Linkouture and puts a handy purple tag in front of it.

Does your inbox leave you feeling overwhelmed? Use these simple tips for using filters and labels to get your Gmail organized.

To set up labels, click on the gear below you name and click on “Settings”

Does your inbox leave you feeling overwhelmed? Use these simple tips for using filters and labels to get your Gmail organized.

Click on the second tab, “Labels,” and scroll down to the third bolded category where it says “Labels”.

Does your inbox leave you feeling overwhelmed? Use these simple tips for using filters and labels to get your Gmail organized.

Click on “Create new label” and create categories for things that make sense to you. For example, when my husband and I were planning our wedding I created a label for anything wedding related and when we moved I had one labeled “Moving”.

Does your inbox leave you feeling overwhelmed? Use these simple tips for using filters and labels to get your Gmail organized.

Once your labels are set up, you can easily label your messages by clicking on the box to the left of your e-mail message. When you do that, a little tag icon will appear and you can choose a label for it.

gmal label

You can also easily create new labels here and add more than one label to a message. You can use labels for each of your children, different projects you are working on, events you are planning, upcoming trips — anything that makes sense for you and will help you with organizing your email.

Once something is labeled, you can archive it so it is no longer in your main e-mail inbox. You can easily see all the messages with that label (and access archived messages) by hovering your mouse all the way on the left where it says “Inbox”. All of your labels will show up as different categories. You can click on it to access to see just the e-mails with that label instead of scrolling through your entire inbox trying to find an e-mail about a specific topic.

Does your inbox leave you feeling overwhelmed? Use these simple tips for using filters and labels to get your Gmail organized.

Another great feature is to have emails with a certain subject line, that contain a specific keyword, sent to a specific email or sent from a certain email filter into one of these labeled categories instead of going right to your inbox. I find this to be really handy for things like listservs I’m on that tend to send a ton of emails each day and would otherwise clog up my main inbox (and completely overwhelm me). It’s also a great tool if you have multiple email addresses forwarded to one email address, but you want to keep them separate.

To set up filters, click on the gear icon like you did to set up your labels and click on “Settings”. Click on “Filters” and click on “Create New Filter” at the bottom.

Does your inbox leave you feeling overwhelmed? Use these simple tips for using filters and labels to get your Gmail organized.

When that screen pops up, decide on what type of filter you want. Do you want it to be from a certain email address? Contaiing a certain word or group of words? Once you have decided and filled out what type of filter you want, click on “Create filter with this search”.

Does your inbox leave you feeling overwhelmed? Use these simple tips for using filters and labels to get your Gmail organized.

On the next screen you will have the ability to choose to have it automatically labeled, skip to a different inbox, etc.

Does your inbox leave you feeling overwhelmed? Use these simple tips for using filters and labels to get your Gmail organized.

Next month I’ll be sharing some tips for using Google Calendar and Google Drive for keeping your life in order. In the meantime, for more simple tips for keeping on top of things, be sure to check out my posts on five ridiculously simple things I do to stay on task and eight tips for managing your time better.

Does your inbox leave you feeling overwhelmed? Use these simple tips for using filters and labels to get your Gmail organized.

How is your email organization? What are your best tips for organizing your email? 

 

Bev Feldman is a creative entrepreneur and a mom to adorable toddler. She makes handcrafted modern and elegant jewelry for women with a focus on chainmaille with a feminine twist and blogs about her adventures in running a small business while being a stay-at-home mom.  With everything going on in her life, she has to stay organized, and she’ll be sharing her organizing strategies here with us, as part of our Creative Team.  Connect with Bev on FacebookTwitterPinterest, or Instagram.

Blair Lonergan

Tuesday 8th of December 2015

WOW! I had no idea that I could do all of this with my Gmail account. Thanks so much for the helpful info. Love it!

Christina

Tuesday 9th of June 2015

I really need to get my inbox organized. It's a total mess. Most of my email time is spent using my phone. Do any of these things work on mobile devices or is it strictly a desktop process? Thanks for sharing this advice. One way or another..........I've got to get this under control.

Kristi

Monday 8th of June 2015

Love tips on how to better organize my life! Thanks so much for joining us at #homemattersparty So, glad to have seen this!

Darlene

Monday 8th of June 2015

Thanks for the great info. I knew how to use the labels but the filter is new. I am going to give it a try. Thanks again. Best wishes, Darlene (pinning)

Diane Roark

Sunday 7th of June 2015

Thanks so much for helping us organize our massive emails. Thank you also for linking up to Pretty Pintastic Party. pinned

Blessings!