Emails are, by design, both a key and a gateway to productivity.

But as it opens doors to business, it also opens them to unfiltered noise that might become a hindrance to your productive time.

There are many schools of thought to maximize productivity, and I want to share a couple that works for me:

*1- Zero-Inbox Email:*

This ensures you're converting all incoming emails to actions on your to-do list.

*2- Gmail shortcuts:*

E for archive, M for mute, X for select, etc.. are crucial to my productivity by allowing me to reach 0 inboxes faster.

*3- Prioritizing emails from your contact list:*

This is something that a few people realize is important. When you hit the ground and have a business running, you'd give more attention to emails from people on your contact list rather than outsiders reaching out to you with cold emails.

Unfortunately, Gmail doesn't offer such a filter, but there are a few tools that help you clean your inbox from outsiders' emails and label them for later check.

[Emailgurus.xyz] is my favorite as it's open source and solves that problem.

Emailgurus clearly states that they don’t record any of your Gmail data. All contact data is hashed, so only the user owns it. No one else. They prove that by opening the source of their code.

Another tool is Gated. Gated is free and hides outsiders’ emails from your inbox unless they pay for a charity of your choice. While the idea sounds fun, it is unclear what they are doing / will do with the data collected from your emails.

Success starts with a clean & organized inbox.