My inbox is my sanctuary. On an average day I receive 200+ emails, so it is important that my inbox is customized to fit my needs. With so many options for tweaking your Gmail inbox, it is easy to lose track of what will actually make your life easier and what are just bells and whistles. I thought I could offer some clarity on this subject by giving you a peek inside my inbox and explaining why I set it up the way I do.

My main concerns when it comes to my Gmail inbox are organization, visualization of relevant information and ensuring I don’t miss anything important. These five tools have made a sizable impact on these concerns and I think everyone should know how to use them. Priority inbox, filters, labels, and even third-party Chrome Extensions can make a huge difference in your ability to best utilize your inbox.

1. Filters and labels automate inbox organization

Labels are Gmail’s equivalent to organizational folders. Adding a label to an email that correlates with a specific topic makes finding what you are looking for a breeze. If you harness the power of filters you can automate the labeling of important emails. Simply create a filter for a specific sender or phrase and designate it to add the corresponding label to any matching emails. This way you never need to waste time finding emails as long as you know the category in which the email is contained.

2. Rapportive tells you everything you need to know about the person you are emailing

It is important to know who you are emailing. Information like their real name, and where they work can be vital when deciding what to include in your correspondence. Rapportive (website) is a Chrome Extension that pulls your contact’s data from LinkedIn and social profiles and displays it in Gmail when you are emailing them. This removes the opacity that is often prevalent in online communication, so you can cut through the meet and greet and get right to business.

3. Tailor your email to the recipient with Crystal

Emails to your boss should look different than emails to your parents. But how do you make sure to compose the perfect message for whomever you are emailing. Crystal (website) makes a Chrome Extension that builds personality profiles of everyone you contact and then recommends the best way to compose an email to them. For instance your boss may like bullet pointed lists of actionable items and your intern may only skim emails that are over 200 words. These behaviors will all be taken into account based on your past correspondence and Crystal will use them to help you create perfect emails every time.

4. Priority Inbox makes sure you never miss anything important

Priority Inbox describes a way to set up your Gmail inbox so whatever is most important to you always remains at the top. I personally have a sectioned for starred emails that I intend to get around to answering later in the day, followed by all of my unread emails, and the final section contains all read emails. This is by no means the only way to set this up. Depending on your use case it can often be beneficial to create a section for emails with a specific label. I love priority inbox because it keeps my important emails on the front page at all time so they never get lost in the shuffle.

5. Learning keyboard shortcuts makes everything faster

Organization, data visualization, and prioritization will all make Gmail more efficient for you, but now it’s time to make yourself more efficient for Gmail. KeyRocket (website) is a Chrome Extension that will display the equivalent keyboard shortcut every time you take an action in Gmail. Eventually the shortcuts become second nature and you find yourself navigating Gmail faster than before and without the use of a mouse or trackpad.

How do you set up your inbox? Tell us here for a chance to be featured in an upcoming Gooru article!