Productivity Power Up

4 Gmail App Integrations to Declutter Your Inbox

4 Gmail App Integrations to declutter your inbox
I'm Laura!

Our mission is to help small business owners and purpose-driven entrepreneurs redefine success on their own terms and bring their passions and dreams to life with more ease, joy, confidence, fulfillment and freedom.

hey there

Get My Free Guide: The Freedom Framework 

Gimme that

TOp categories

7 Lessons to Create More Joy, Ease, Freedom and Abundance in Your Business and Life

(And Finally be able to get Inbox Zero!)

4 Gmail App Integrations to declutter your inbox

I don’t think there is anything in the world that overwhelms me more than a messy inbox. Every time I look over my boyfriend’s shoulder and see his inbox of 864+ unread emails I literally cringe. I’ve mentored a lot of creative business owners that have the same problem and not only is this overwhelming, but you’re likely missing out on leads or business opportunities by not taking control of your inbox. So many people in my audience have this pain point so today I’m going to talk about 4 apps you can use in conjunction with Gmail to declutter your inbox! Yay for email productivity!

To me, using the regular view of Gmail poses a few problems.

  • There are no lists
  • It’s a bad interface for compartmentalizing things
  • It’s not designed for visual learners or us creative types
  • And when you close one email, it opens you back up to the whole list instead of sorting through them one by one, like the first app I’m going to talk about!

To me, that last problem is very overwhelming because I’m brought right back to that list of dozens to hundreds of emails – I think this makes it very easy to try and multitask in our inbox and not get through the emails one by one because we’re always getting distracted by what else is in there and bouncing around from one email to the next without actually accomplishing anything!!

So, a few years ago I decided that I needed to search for a way to keep my inbox organized so that this wasn’t a cause of constant overwhelmed in my life. I wanted to be sure I didn’t miss out on any business opportunities or inquiries because I just missed them or things fell through the cracks in my inbox.

*This used to constantly happen back when I was a designer- one of the other project managers had HUNDREDS of unread emails from clients about things that needed to be handled on the projects, and because he never read them or fixed what they were asking, we actually had MAJOR problems with building and fire codes!! Hopefully your messy inbox never remotes to problems that serious.

So, let’s dive in to the 4 apps for Gmail to help you declutter your inbox!

1.  SORT’D

The first app I want to talk about is SORT’D. (This is what I use on a daily basis and I LOVE IT!)  SORT’D is a “skin” for your Gmail that allows you to sort your emails into lists visually with a *kanban style interface. With SORT’D, you will not have the need to flag, star or mark emails as read/unread leaving emails in your inbox forever, because of this visual interface.

*Kanban lists are: List that contains a set of related cards—typically those in the same stage of a process—in a titled column on a kanban board; a traditional project management tool calls this a “to-do list” or “task list”. – Source: Zapier

You can create your own lists within the app and sort your emails by any category you want. My lists are:

  • To-Do
  • Photography / Mentoring,
  • To Print,
  • To read / watch
  • FYI / No action needed.

Declutter Your Inbox - Asana, Sortd, Inbox

SORT’D’s set up shows your unsorted emails on the left hand side of your screen, and then shows your 5 lists on the right hand side. Then you literally just click and drag each of your emails into the appropriate list.

Declutter Your Inbox - Asana, Sortd, Inbox

Not only does this give you awesome visual organization of your inbox, but it also allows you to batch task your email! You can go through all the to-do items at once, or you can go through all the read / watch emails at once, or the entire print column at once. It’s blissful!

Instead of context switching– which is unproductive for our brains by going through emails one by one and having a “to do item” and then a “print email” and then a blog post “to read”, SORT’D allows you to sort your emails in columns with similar categories so that you can have peak inbox productivity. Ah-mazing.

You can also do many different things to each email– you can…

  • Highlight the email a certain color (Great for working with an assistant- give yourself each your own color, so you know who’s responsible to complete or reply to emails!)
  • Mark it as complete if you’re not ready to archive it
  • Archive it
  • Add notes to an email in the sidebar (Great again for working with an assistant so they can add notes if they have questions or anything!)
  • Snooze it
  • Mark it for follow-up
  • Change the subject line to give yourself a reminder for what you need to do for that email
  • Reply right inside SORT’D.

My method for using this is to go through my entire unsorted inbox on the left and answer any emails that will take me 3 minutes or less to answer. (Or archive any emails that I don’t need to do anything with) Then, the ones that I have left I sort into all of my lists. I then go into each of my lists at a dedicated time each day and complete all of the items in each list and hopefully get down to inbox zero!

The thing I love most about SORT’D is…

When you’re going through the “unsorted” inbox, if you’re not sorting them into lists, it opens the next email right away instead of bringing you back to the list of all your emails (like the problem I mentioned with regular gmail) I LOVE this because it forces me to “mono-task” in my emails!)

Watch the quick 20 second video below to see what I mean!

Pro tip: you can also hide your current inbox if you want to focus on only the emails that are in your lists. (Because we all know that as soon as you get through 20 emails you have 20 more waiting for you). If I’m trying to get my sorted lists cleaned up, I will hide my inbox into a “drawer” on the side of the SORT’D interface.

Pro tip 2: You can also drag and drop your emails in the order that’s most important, so if you have a ton of emails, and there are certain ones that a priority to answer, you can drag those to the top of your list!

2.  Unroll.me

The second app I’m going to talk about is unroll.me I love this app because it gives you the ability to quickly unsubscribe from dozens or even hundreds of email subscriptions at once!

Basically, you go to unroll.me website and sign up. It then scans your entire email system for any subscriptions you have and gives you a giant list, alphabetically of what you’re subscribed to. (Coupons, Newsletters, you name it!) Then, it’s time to get to work! Read y step-by-step instructions on how to be up and running and declutter your inbox in literally minutes.

Declutter Your Inbox - Asana, Sortd, Inbox

Step 1: Go through the alphabetical list and unsubscribe to anything you never read. SIMPLIFY SIMPLIFY SIMPLIFY!

*Unroll.me will unsubscribe for you.

Step 2: Roll up all your subscriptions like coupons and shopping into one daily email! If there are newsletters you only read once in a blue moon, roll those up too.

Step 3: Keep all the emails you actually like to read daily in your inbox

Step 4: Sit back and watch your inbox get way less cluttered.

Step 5: You will get 1 email a day with your daily “roll-up!”

3. Inbox by Google

Inbox, or inbox by Google, is simply a different way of viewing your Gmail. And I personally love it so much more! It has an awesome interface and incredible sorting options in comparison to Gmail.

The magic of Inbox is that it bundles messages that are similar, together. For example, it bundles all of your:

  • Promos
  • Main Inbox
  • Trips
  • Purchases
  • Finance

Into their own tab!

Declutter Your Inbox - Asana, Sortd, Inbox

I used to use Inbox ALL THE TIME, until SORT’D became a thing, and that honestly just worked for my brain, but Inbox is seriously amazing! You can do things like:

  • Set reminders on emails such as (Follow up on ___ day, make a reservation at ____ restaurant). Basically adding tasks to your emails.
  • Snooze emails. If you don’t need to deal with it, or don’t need to follow up for a while, snooze it to a specific date and it’ll pop back up in your inbox then! (Great way to get to inbox zero!)
  • Mark as “done”! This is essentially the same thing as archiving an email, but they all go into a done folder in the inbox side bar.

At any given time, you can view the emails in your “done folder” your “snooze folder” or your “pinned reminders”

Declutter Your Inbox - Asana, Sortd, Inbox

Declutter Your Inbox - Asana, Sortd, Inbox

Pro Tip: Unless they recently changed this, you need to request access to Inbox by going into your gmail settings. This post explains how to do that.

Pro tip 2: I love using Inbox on my phone, mostly when I’m traveling because it bundles everything about one trip into one section! Flights, hotels, Car rentals, etc. It’s amazing!!

4. Asana for Gmail

YESSS! This is a new plug-in that Asana and Gmail just released (at the time of this writing!).

If you are in regular Gmail view (aka not using any of the other apps above) you can use this plug-in to turn your emails into tasks in Asana!

Step 1: Download the plug-in and sign in with your Gmail

Step 2: Make sure you see the Asana icon in your Gmail sidebar

Step 3: Click the Asana icon for any emails that require more in depth to-do’s that should be living in your task management system.

Step 4: Pick who the task is assigned to, what the due date is, and what project it’s going into. (I always put them in my weekly to-do board!)

Step 5: Archive it from your emails (as long as you know you’ll complete it in Asana and not ignore it!!).

The asana card it creates attaches the whole email and any links inside it to the cards description, so you don’t have to worry about copy and pasting things into your Asana! It saves so much time!! I used to write out all the tasks from my email that required to-dos into Asana manually, so this was a game-changer for me, and I hope it will be for you too!

Declutter Your Inbox - Asana, Sortd, Inbox

P.S.  Not using Asana, but you’re curious about it? Click here to read my post on Getting Started with Asana for Task Management


PHEW! You made it friend. This was a long one, but I know that people’s brains all work differently and some interfaces might work for some people, and not for others, so I wanted to share all the things I’ve tried and loved!

BONUS! These are all completely free to use!

So what are you waiting for? Sign up for your accounts with these apps and give them a try! You’re going to have a decluttered inbox, and possibly even inbox zero in no time.

You might also enjoy this post on using email better, so you can have peak productivity every day. And to learn even more tips to streamline your business and keep your task list organized, download my free guide below! 

Click here to subscribe

+ show Comments

- Hide Comments

add a comment

  1. […] 9. 4 Gmail App Integrations to Declutter Your Inbox » […]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

We teach paid courses, host a membership community, and sell DIY templates and resources - ALL designed to help business owners build better businesses and better lives.  Our hope is to help make following your passions easier. We can't wait to see your dreams come to life!

We also offer one on one services including brand photography, coaching, and done-for-you workflow creation and implementation.

Creativity

Steal this!

The Freedom Framework: 

DOWNLOAD THE FREE GUIDE!

Just quitting your day job for your dream business doesn't necessarily mean you'll have freedom in your life.  Grab my free guide on the foundational lessons I learned after growing 3 businesses so you can have more freedom with your time, finances, lifestyle, purpose and creativity as you build a business you love. 

7 lessons to create more joy, ease, freedom, and abundance in your business and life.

laura lee creative

Helping purpose-driven entrepreneurs bring their passions, message, dreams and stories to the world while finding freedom in every area of their life and business.

@LAURALEECREATIVE

© Laura Lee Creative 2017-2022. All rights reserved. | Legal | Design by TONIC

back to top