Gmail’s Inbox has me thinking about my email as a task list, now more than ever. I’m trying out this new way of managing my messages now.
I’m having fun with the UI on my phone, and the new terminology. I can “sweep” bunches of emails into a “done” pile, now. It’s just so much more satisfying than archiving ever was, but really you are just archiving your messages like before.
I used to scroll through page after page of messages that I wasn’t quite ready to delete, but I wanted to file them … some day. Now I just sweep them away. I’m still postponing the filing/deleting, but I get all the nonsense emails out of my way, and I can deal with the important messages in no time.
Impressively, using this for a couple of days, I was able to cut my unread messages down from thousands to none. I’m actually dealing with messages as they arrive now. Unheard of.
I use the Inbox app pretty much exclusively on my phone now, but I still use the old Gmail UI on the desktop. I find it’s easier to search and select multiple emails.
There are other features of note, like bundling and pinning and being able to set alerts. But the big one for me was reducing all the message clutter. So, thank you, Google.