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Using Gmail's Starred items to track expected replies - Emailers Anonymous
by Jason Clarke Aug 27th 2008 at 4:00PM
One of the hardest aspects of managing email is keeping track of sent messages where a reply is expected. Do you have this problem? I know I do. Some of the people I correspond with are completely reliable, and I know that if I send them something, I will get a reply within 24 hours and often sooner. But some of my other regular correspondents are not so reliable. At all.
It's really frustrating.
Luckily, if you're a Gmail user, there is a very simply method for keeping track of messages where you are expecting a reply. You see it every day, and you might even be using it for something else.
What am I talking about?
The Starred attribute. With a single key or button press, Gmail allows you to add a star to a message which prominently appears whenever that message or thread is in view.
This process is incredibly simple, but effective. Now, I should first point out that starring an email is for all intents and purposes the same as labeling a message with any arbitrary label. But I think stars work better as an expected response reminder than a label would. So follow along with me and see if you don't come to the same conclusion.
Setting Up
The set-up for this method is simple: just make sure you do not currently have any Starred messages. Click on your Starred folder to see what has collected there. Since the meaning of stars is not defined, I found that I had all sorts of random stuff in there that was probably at some point important to me, but that I no longer cared to flag. A few more recent important items were also in there, and for those I created a new "High Priority" label (which I colored red so it would stand out), and once the important messages were appropriately labeled I removed them from my Starred folder.
Okay, that's it. You're set.
The Method
From now on, all you have to do is make sure to star any message you send when you need to track the reply. If you have a look in your Sent Mail folder, you might even find a few items in there that still have outstanding replies that you are waiting for. Go ahead and star them.
This accomplishes two things.
Firstly, you can click in to your Starred folder at any time to see what you are still waiting on. You then have the opportunity to gently remind your recipient that you are still waiting on an answer.
Secondly, when you do get a reply to one of these messages, they show up in your Inbox with a star already on them. If the message was important enough that you wanted to track the reply, you probably want to make sure that you notice once you do get a reply, and this method will accomplish that goal.
Don't forget to remove the star once you've received a reply so that you keep your Starred folder tightly focused on threads that are expecting responses.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Cesar said 7:50PM on 8-27-2008
Don't forget to enable 'superstars' on Gmail Labs so you can organize them better.
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Sam said 1:15AM on 8-28-2008
I've essentially been doing this since I read "Getting Things Done." Your starred emails make a wonderful "Waiting On" list and you can easily add non-email tasks by emailing yourself.
I actually do this in conjunction with the RTM Gmail extension for Firefox. It can create a task whenever you star an email, which makes a nice list that sits visibly on the right side of Gmail.
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James said 5:08AM on 8-28-2008
You could also set up a filter to label any out-going messages as 'need reply' or something similar by including a short snippet of text at the end of your message, perhaps something such as '[NR]' which would automatically trigger the filter, without interfering with the message the recipient receives.
This saves time as you can enter the text trigger when composing, and don't have to keep going to sent items to star messages.
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Patrick72 said 8:12AM on 8-28-2008
I don't understand the problem. The big advantage of Gmail is that it combines e-mail and its replies together to one 'conversation'. When I sent now an e-mail and I get a reply right away or I receive a reply the next month, Gmail always shows the reply 'attached' with the original e-mail as a conversation on top of my Inbox because the reply is at that moment the newest message. So you always see when there is a (new) reply, no matter how long you have to wait for it. Or am I wrong?
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downloadsquad said 10:33AM on 8-28-2008
I have an "@WAITINGON" label in GMail, and using GMail Macros, any message that I'm expecting a response on is labeled by typing "l@y" - an alternative for people (like me) who use their stars for something else.
I'm not crazy about superstars because I can't (as far as I saw) sort by different types of stars.
@Patrick72 The issue is marking the emails that you're expecting a response on, so if someone doesn't respond, you can follow-up more easily than just remembering you were expecting 121 replies.
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