From 60 to 0 with Gmail Shortcuts

Welcome to Monday. This is what my inbox looked liked when I got in... the message list continues outside of the screen capture, but you get the idea:

Monday morning inbox of horrors.

If you are like me and crave the fabled inbox zero, then seek no more -- I can help you reduce and keep your Gmail inbox at a manageable level or zero if you prefer. All you have to do is invest a little time reading this article and try a couple practice keyboard shortcut sessions. Once the shortcuts are second nature you will be able to reduce your inbox message conversations from 60 to 0 in a matter of minutes. This is where I got in 10 minutes time:

Ahh, bliss - a clean inbox.

Before we start let's see why this strategy works:

Keyboard shortcuts save time. Exponentially.
Trust me... Really!

Usually the pain about learning keyboard shortcuts is that there are too many to take in all at once. This article shows you the exact keyboard shortcuts you need to learn for to efficiently reduce messages in your inbox. (If you don't know why you might want to have fewer messages in your inbox read David Allen's Getting Things Done book for starters.)

1. The first thing you'll want to setup is a Google Labs feature called Auto-advance found in your Gmail settings -> Labs. 

FYI: The image below shows the information relevant to this article in green, although I've also highlighted some areas in pink with settings/features I also find useful that happened to be in the same screenshot.

Auto-advance Labs Feature

2. Next, configure turn on Gmail keyboard shortcuts and configure the Auto-advance feature you installed in step 1.

Add some bling to your Settings.

3. Great now that your Gmail is setup, here are the keyboard shortcuts that you need for this task. Again focus on the green, which are relevant to this task, although I've also highlighted other frequently used shortcuts in pink. You might learn those once you are comfortable with the green commands.

Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts Help Menu (press '?' to see this)

Here's the list of the green items which are relevant for the clean-up task in text form along with a brief description of what each command does:

u -- Return to conversation list -- Refreshes your page and returns you to the inbox, or list of conversations.

k -- Move to newer conversation -- Opens or moves your cursor to a more recent conversation. You can hit to expand a conversation.

j -- Move to older conversation -- Opens or moves your cursor to the next oldest conversation. You can hit to expand a conversation.

o or <Enter> -- Open -- Opens your conversation. Also expands or collapses a message if you are in 'Conversation View.'

p -- Previous message -- Moves your cursor to the previous message. You can hit to expand or collapse a message. (Only applicable in 'Conversation View.')

n -- Next message -- Moves your cursor to the next message. You can hit to expand or collapse a message. (Only applicable in 'Conversation View.')

v -- Move to -- Moves the conversation from the inbox to a different label, Spam or Trash.

s -- Star a message or conversation -- Adds or removes a star to a message or conversation. Stars allow you to give a message or conversation a special status.

# -- Delete -- Moves the conversation to Trash.

r -- Reply -- Replies to the message sender. + r allows you to reply to a message in a new window. (Only applicable in 'Conversation View.')

a -- Reply all -- Replies to all message recipients. +a allows you to reply to all message recipients in a new window. (Only applicable in 'Conversation View.')

f -- forward -- Forwards a message. + f allows you to forward a message in a new window. (Only applicable in 'Conversation View.')

Tab then <Enter> -- Send message -- Combo key: After composing your message, use this combination to send it automatically.

z   -- Undo -- Undoes your previous action, if possible (works for actions with an 'undo' link).

Some of the shortcuts are intuitive and some will require getting used to. (The navigation key choices stem from Vi, so sysadmins rejoice!)

The clean-up process

1. From inbox view, jump into a message using <Enter>. 
2. Once on a message decide if I want to delete (#), move (v), reply/reply all/forward (r/a/f), or mark with a star (s - pushing repeatedly cycles through the star icons).
   
   GTD TIP: If the item is actionable I may decide to forward to Evernote if it is something I want to look at later, like an article, image or attachment or to ToodleDo if the message is really a task that I need to get done. Repeat with me: My inbox is not my task list, my inbox is not my task list, my inbox is not my task list!!!
   
   To make it easy to do these forwards add your Evernote and ToodleDo email accounts to your Gmail contacts so they appear in the To: pop-up when you need to send a message to a 3rd party service. Then use the tab+enter combo shortcut to send your message, sans mouse.
   
   
3. Rinse and repeat.

You may have noticed the clean-up process only uses a subset of the keyboard shortcuts I highlighted in green as relevant to the task. This is because you really only need those other keys (u, k, j, p, n and z) to navigate comfortably while you are cleaning house. These navigation keys are definitely worth learning right away and will liberate your mouse hand.

If you decide to try this out please leave a comment to let me know how it goes. The only thing I can say about learning this technique for myself is: Why didn't I learn these shortcuts sooner!?

Work, Success and Happiness

“Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same.”

                ~Francesca Reigler 

To be happy at work it really helps to love what you do. Unfortunately not all of us can say we love our work, but fear not! I've found some videos sure to increase motivation and interest in the work we do.

In these 3 TED videos you will hopefully find a renewed interest in whatever work you do and be inspired to make the world a better place!

Richard St. John's 8 secrets of success

http://www.richardstjohn.com/

Shawn Achor: The happy secret to better work

http://www.shawnachor.com/

Matt Cutts: Try something new for 30 days

Shock The Taskbar, Shock The Taskbar

I really don't like it
Shockin' the Taskbah
Shock the Taskbah


A few years back I caught a glimpse of a coworkers screen and noticed his Windows taskbar was in a funny location. I tried moving my own taskbar over to the side and immediately saw how much more useful the window titles were, now that I could partially see what they said. I generally keep my "sidebar" width around 3-4 mini icons.


So what are you waiting for?!
Get vertical!

Nature Inspires Creativity

Apricots and Avocado

Nature is inspiring and living simply doesn't mean you have to leave creativity at home! Unleashing the creative artist within is a wonderful way to create more balance throughout your life.

Laura's Nature Mosaic

A nature mosaic can be made practically anywhere out of doors and from materials you find in your natural surroundings. To the right is  a mosaic with a giant redwood tree, some wispy green clouds and a sun in the background.

Joshua's Nature Mosaic

A framed nature mosaic with tall aquamarine trees, a log house with chimney smoke and a little garden.

There was charcoal all over the forest we were visiting due to the 2002 Colorado Hayman fire and we left a few tags, in hidden places, to revisit in the future.

Charcoal Tagging

Mr. Smiley

Greenshot For My Screenshot

Greenshot is a free screen capture tool and is a must have if you still use your print screen button <PrtScn> and paste images into Paint and MS Word.

My favorite features in the Greenshot image editor include drawing shapes, obfuscating image areas, adding annotations and highlighting. 

Greenshot Editor Demo

After I take a Greenshot using the PrtScn button, I can directly paste this image into Gmail when I use Chrome. This combination is really efficient for saving words in an email by using an image.

Sort Your Way to a Trimmer Inbox in Outlook

Oftentimes I have messages in my inbox with matching subjects. These are usually easy targets for mass deletion. As I'm looking at what to trash, most of the time when my messages are in groups I generally only care about the last message and members with attachments.


First add the "conversations" field to the current view. To do so right-click on current view bar and "Customize":

Add the "conversation" field to the view

Then do the following to get sorted:

• click "Conversation" tab to sort and group based on subjects
• hold down <Shift> key throughout the rest of this process
• click "Received" tab to sort based on this additional vector
• click "Received" tab again to reverse the date sort, so newest messages are on top

Outlook Inbox messages sorted by conversation, received

Hopefully this sort tip will get your Outlook Inbox closer to "zero" in short order!