Is Your Gmail Out of Control?

Even through the use of other email management tools, which have helped tremendously, my Gmail inbox still held more mail than I wanted it to. I really wanted something to help me pare my email inbox down to almost nothing.

ActiveInbox  is a Firefox plugin that lets me empty my inbox, manage email tasks entirely within Gmail, and integrate Gmail with my other management tools.

ActiveInbox helps you blur the line between email and task management. Upon installation, you get a handy Review Bar that sits at the top of your Gmail window to guarantee things get completed. In that Review bar you’ll see things you’ve set for the current day, those that need action, those that you’re waiting on, and projects.

ActiveInbox helps you regularly clear you inbox by:

• Deleting or archiving an email via its “move nexter” shortcuts to help you archive/delete and move next with a single click.
• Filing it by adding it to a project folder so that Gmail starts to take the form of a personal knowledge base, full of well organized information.
• Taking action on it if you cannot do it now. Give it an Action or Waiting On status so you can track it from the Review Bar, or apply a Deadline to impress contacts with a timely response.

In the Reply box, ActiveInbox has a “Previous Emails” button that shows you recent discussions with a person, letting you spot any active items that you might have overlooked, or just find out what you last talked about.

You can also keep notes to remind yourself of key information or to record what you think so that when you return later on, you remember what was important. Because the Note appears in the Active Results next to the conversation, it is a good idea to make the note something short and actionable that you can scan. E.g. ‘Call Bob on his home phone’. (If you ever wished you could change the subject of an email, this is the next best thing).

In ActiveInbox, any email that has a status (Action/Waiting On) or a deadline is active. This is the main thing you’ll focus on when doing reviews. On the Review Bar, the number next to a project is the number of active items (not total number of emails). And when you click the project from the Review Bar, it opens into the Active Results (which only shows active emails), but if you need to, you can switch the results tab to “All Results” to include reference materials.

ActiveInbox is available free of charge, and they also offer a Plus option for $24.95/year as of this writing to be able to add deadlines and notes to emails, which isn’t available in the free version.

Empty your email inbox today.