10 ONE-MINUTE Email Habits for Productivity!
About this video
Jeff shares ten one-minute email habits. First, process your inbox from the bottom up, starting with the oldest emails so you have full context for newer ones; he gives Gmail settings (enable Auto-Advance, go to next newer conversation, turn on keyboard shortcuts) and Outlook settings to enable this. Second, use shortcuts: E to archive when no action is needed, K to move to the next email without archiving if it will take more than two minutes, and B to snooze — pro tip, snooze anything due more than a week away until a few days before. Third, describe attachments in the email body rather than writing ‘see attachments,’ so you can later search by that descriptive keyword, illustrated with a ‘Taiwan Visa’ example. Fourth, use Gmail’s filter chips instead of search operators, noting that selecting ‘has attachment’ reveals extra options including excluding calendar updates. Fifth, after composing, take five seconds to add a label or star to save time finding the email later. Sixth, save frequently sent emails as templates, with brackets for values to update, and save ChatGPT email prompts the same way. Seventh, set mobile swipe actions — right swipe to archive, left swipe to label — to triage on a commute. Eighth, use ‘set up a time to meet’ in a reply to offer free time slots or create an event directly. Ninth, change Google Docs/Sheets/Slides comment notifications to ‘for you’ and edit notifications to ’none.’ Tenth, adopt Inbox Zero, attributed to Jake Knapp, sorting mail into Follow-up, Awaiting Reply and Read Through Later buckets and archiving everything else.
Key takeaways
- Work your inbox bottom-up from oldest to newest, with Auto-Advance enabled, so newer emails are handled with full context
- Use E to archive, K to skip emails needing more than two minutes, and B to snooze — snoozing anything due more than a week away
- Describe attachments in the email body with searchable keywords, and use Gmail filter chips instead of typing search operators
- Label or star sent emails, and save recurring emails and AI email prompts as reusable templates
- Apply the Inbox Zero system: sort into Follow-up, Awaiting Reply and Read Through Later, and archive all other email
Episode details: published October 3, 2023 · 6:26 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Jeff Su’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.
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