Gmail Tips 2021: How to Save Time in Gmail | Top 5 Gmail Tips for 2021
Are you being as productive as you can be in Gmail? In this article, I’m sharing the Top 5 Gmail tips 2021 for productivity, that will help save you time in Gmail.
Today, we’re diving back into Gmail 2021, but this time we’re focusing on Gmail tips for productivity. Are you ready to save time in Gmail? Yes? Then let’s go! Should you want to binge even more Gmail content today. But today’s focus is how to save time in Gmail.
1. Use Smart Compose and Smart Reply
Though these are technically two different things, I recommend using them hand-in-hand, so this is a 2 for 1 tip! Head to your gear icon and select ‘see all settings’.
From here, scroll down and ensure both your smart compose is toggled on and your smart reply is toggled on.
Another tip within a tip is to make sure personalization is toggled on to because Gmail will automatically compose writing suggestions based on your writing style.
So you may wonder what the difference is between smart compose and smart reply. Here’s what it all looks like. With smart reply enabled, when you open an email, you’ll have auto-generated responses at the bottom of the email here.
Google is simply anticipating what your response might be. If you click on one of these, it automatically opens up the reply where you can add from there if you wish.
Now, smart compose is different in that it works as you are typing out your email. So, again, Google is anticipating what you’re trying to say and it’ll offer suggestions for finishing your sentence as you type. To accept the suggestion, just hit the tab.
Also Read: Top 5 Google Calendar Tips 2021 for Productivity
2. Gmail Templates Tips for Productivity
Create, save and use Gmail templates! I’m a big fan of templates and this is a massive Gmail time saver if you’re constantly sending the same email over again.
If you haven’t used templates before, just head back to your setting section in Gmail, and this time head to the advanced section, and make sure you enable templates, then click save changes. Now here’s where it gets fun.
Every time you write an email, you can save it as a template, or insert a previously saved template. So let’s say you compose an email that you send all the time, like a job application or something, you can save it as a template by selecting the 3 dot menu icon by the trash can, hover over templates, then choose to save it as a template.
Now when you go to write that same email next time, you can head back to your templates in the compose window, and this time select the template you want to insert. Of course, you can make changes to any templates, so you can personalize this from here, but the rest of the work was already done and saved for you.
If you’re finding these tips valuable so far, remember to give this article a like and comment on my article for even more Google goodness. Now on with the Gmail productivity tips!
3. Schedule an Email in Gmail (save time in Gmail)
Use Gmail’s schedule send feature. It’s so easy to schedule an email in Gmail. This is a great productivity tip if you know you’re going to be out of the office, but want to send a follow-up on a specific day. Heck, you could even schedule holiday emails or birthday emails, your options are endless.
To schedule an email in Gmail, all you have to do is click the dropdown arrow to the right of the send button in your Gmail compose window.
Right here, the option to schedule send comes up. Simply select that and choose the day and time you want the email to be sent. To confirm, just click ‘schedule send’. It’s really that easy.
Also Read: How to Set Up Google Calendar Notifications
4. Use For Smart Search
Use the asterisk to search for a contact, even if you can’t remember their name. Ya, no name, no problem! Head on up to your search bar in Gmail. You’ll use quotations for this search.
So let’s say you know don’t know the name of the person, but you remember the company and domain, you’ll put an asterisk in place of their name followed by their company domain. Hit enter and Gmail has pulled up all emails from that company email.
The asterisk in this case literally means anything. So Gmail is searching anything at that domain. So now, you can easily find the person who you had to follow up with. In this case, this asterisk is what’s known as a search operator.
5. Change Default Inbox View
And with that, the 5th Gmail tip for productivity is to change your default inbox view. This is going to be customized to whatever you find most productive.
So click on that gear icon, and this time let’s pay attention to this right-hand side quick settings panel, specifically, the inbox type section. You’ll notice under the default option, which is what I have here, you actually have the option to customize this if you want, so you can select the tabs you want to display for you.
But back in the quick settings, maybe you function best when you have emails marked important pinned to the top of your inbox, or maybe you only want unread messages at the top of your inbox, you can adjust all these views right here.
You can put starred first at the top, but one I think could be extremely useful to help save time in Gmail is the multiple inboxes setting. If you select the customize option here, you can actually select up to 5 custom sections that you want to be displayed alongside your inbox.
Now, these sections are using search operators, just like we saw with the asterisk search hack. So you could specify specific recipients or words in a subject line. And if you’re wondering how the heck to use different search operators, you can just click on learn more and then in this popup, click on search criteria, and here’s a list of all different kinds of search operators you can use.
So hopefully you learned how to save time in Gmail with my Gmail tips for productivity. What did you think of these Gmail productivity tips? Let everyone know in the comments below. As always, thank you so much for reading this article.