Never miss an email again

A while back, I reached out to a tattoo artist about booking time. It seemed like a situation where their books weren’t full, no waiting list mentioned, super casual social media presence.

And… nothing. No reply.

There are a hundred reasons why someone wouldn’t get back to me. But I’m pretty sure my email just got lost.

Here’s what I can’t stop thinking about: how many people are missing opportunities (and potentially leaving money on the table) not because they don’t want the work, but because their email is working against them.

It’s not their fault, either! No one teaches us this in school!

How to write an artist statement? Sure.

How to write a grant proposal? Maybe.

But how to not be so overwhelmed by email that you miss an opportunity buried in Costco updates? Not on your life.

So today, I want to share three Gmail tricks that can change the way your inbox FEELS.

I know this sounds boring (I KNOW), but a chaotic inbox makes things harder to find and easier to just avoid altogether.

So many people say they’re terrible at email, or hate checking it, or don’t have time. I get it.

But I swear that spending 15-20 minutes on the following items will move the needle in the right direction.

This sounds obvious, but Gmail just made it really easy for you to unsubscribe to a ton of emails you don’t need in two minutes. Even if you use the Promotions tab - which I honestly don’t recommend - this is useful!

Step 1: In the left-hand menu (underneath Categories) click MORE, then Manage Subscriptions

Step 2: Gmail will show you everything you’re subscribed to and how often they email you.

Stuff at the top is probably clogging your inbox. If you never read it AND don’t really want to hear from them, click Unsubscribe on the right. DONE.

Costco emailed me 20 times recently? wtf. unsubscribe.

Email labels function like folders. You can label an email while it’s still in your inbox and then ARCHIVE it so it lives in that other folder and gets out of your way.

One HUGE time saver is setting up filters to automatically label certain emails as they come in.

Some ideas for emails you can auto-label (and then I’ll show you how to do it):

Again, this is for Gmail, but it functions in a similar way in most email providers.

Step 1: Create a new label in the left-hand sidebar (click the ➕ button!)

Step 2: Find an email that you’d like to label moving forward and open it.

Step 3: Click on the three dots in the upper-right corner, then FILTER MESSAGES LIKE THIS to open the filter settings. It assumes you want to filter any email from that sender.

Step 4: Click CREATE FILTER (next to the Search button) - don’t worry, you’re not actually saving it or making any wild changes yet!

Step 5: Check the box for APPLY LABEL and choose the label you’d like to apply any time an email comes in from this sender.

Other popular options:

Step 6: Click CREATE FILTER and you’re done!

You can always go to Settings » Filters and Blocked Addresses to update or change these.

If you’re a service provider, an artist taking commissions, or just someone with a contact form on their website, this is a big one.

Yes, you can just give out your email address, but someone’s note can easily get lost or even go to Spam. It also means everyone has your email address…

The easiest way to fix this is to set up a contact form on your site (or within your link-in-bio page) so folks have to use that form to contact you for the first time.

This USUALLY means a uniform subject line in your inbox.

Example: New contact form submission from New Friend

If it’s a uniform subject line, that means you can label it automatically!

If you want to embed a contact form in your site and hook it up to your CRM - go nuts - but you can also just link to a simple Google Form, Typeform, etc. for free. Make sure they always need to give you their name and email address.

Step 1: Test the contact form yourself and see what the notification email looks like in your inbox.

Step 2: Create a new filter where instead of filtering emails from that address, it’s filtering to the unique part of the SUBJECT LINE.

Step 3: Create a filter that adds a label and always marks it as important. DONE.

Now whenever someone uses your contact form, it gets a nice label and won’t go to spam.

After someone uses the form: When you email the person who reached out, create a new filter for any email from their email address.

Label it CLIENT or COMMISSION or something you can apply to everyone in that category. Doesn’t have to be super specific to that project, just something that flags it for you as important.

BONUS IDEA: You can color code the labels 🫠

Want this in your inbox? Subscribe to TODAY TODAY for weekly emails.