30 Days of Email Domination: Management Overhead

By Sol in Blog

Sadly, total email processing time did not stay under 30 minutes for long.

A lot of additional time was spent on email management today, due mostly to fixing messages that were assigned the wrong SmartLabel. Nearly 20% of all SmartLabeled messages needed to be corrected this week. My hope is that correcting these erroneously-labeled messages now will help Gmail to improve its algorithm and minimize the amount of false-positives in the future.

SmartLabels are still integral to my workflow as it filters out much (if not all) of the noise in the inbox so that I can get through those messages quickly. I can deal with a few false-positives, though I would prefer not to.

On the plus side, the amount of filter refinements I’ve had to make this week was very low, and I only needed to unsubscribe from a single mailing list.

While spending 45 minutes on email for the entire week is nothing to complain about, I am looking forward to next week’s trip to the inbox to see if we can get time moving back in right direction.

Today’s Stats

  • Checked email: 1 time
  • Time: 10:33:28
  • Total messages: 163
    • Inbox: 58
    • Bulk: 105
    • Important: 0
  • Management: 32
    • Incorrect Smart Label: 28
    • Unsubscribe: 1
    • Update filtering: 3
  • Time per Message
    • Inbox: 14:39 (4 messages/minute)
    • Bulk: 11:47 (8.9 messages/minute)
    • Management (filters, etc.): 18:45
    • Total: 45:11
    • Average: 3.6 messages/minute