How to Use Gmail as a Business Diary and More Tips

Turn Gmail into a Business Diary

Knowledge workers attend lots of meetings. We also have tons of loose bits of information that need collecting during the day. It all needs to be processed. To jog our memory, we take notes. Most of the time this is with pen and paper - unless your culture is laptop/Tablet PC friendly. Many aren't. I use David Allen's GTD system and now buckle it into Gmail as my sole collection bucket.

I long for a searchable record of my meetings and important notes. This has led me to experiment with numerous systems over the years. Ideally, I want my data available 24/7 from any computer or mobile device. Even better, I wanted it organized by date with a list of my meetings on top - e.g. like a paper-based business diary. If you combine an online calendar with Gmail, you can make this a snap.

We have an Exchange Server at work. I use it for group scheduling but I also keep it in sync with Google Calendar. GCal and other systems like it can send your daily agenda to you via email. Mine arrives precisely at 4:38 every morning, often just before I get up. Using Gmail's filters/labels I automatically have these tagged Diary.

Once the message arrives, I keep it in my inbox all day. Then, as take notes, I reply to the email, but change the address to my own. Then as the day goes on, I keep adding to the conversation thread with replies to myself. These all get threaded as a single conversation.

It gets better. If I am on the go, I will write down the notes in a Moleskine and then call my Jott or Callwave number in between meetings. These arrive in my inbox too (either as text or an audio file). Later, when I am back at my computer I append the note to another reply to me and archive the entire conversation thread. Finally, at week's end I go through all seven notes as part of my weekly review. (The fIgure below is from a weekend - when the review is conducted.)

Annotate Books as You Read Them

I buy a lot of books and audiobooks. Almost all of them are about business or sports. I draw lessons from every single one and I want a way to capture it all. Once again, Gmail is a lifesaver here. This technique builds on the one prior.

Using the Google Toolbar trick outlined in Gmail PNC Part I, I find the book on Amazon.com and send my self a snippet of the title, author and summary to steverubel+secretword@gmail.com. I automatically label these "booknotes" using Gmail's filters. Then as I go, I simply keep replying to myself with the notes I want to keep on the book. These all get archived as a conversation for later search/retrieval.

Get Critical Information When You Need It

Let's say there's a traffic jam on the highway you drive home everyday. Or worse, there's a tornado or even God-forbid a tsunami on the way. You'd want to know about it I bet. You can instantly by combining Gmail with GTalk, some RSS feeds and Feedcrier.

I have Gmail and thus the embedded Google Talk client open constantly when I am at my computer. When I am on the go, I run Google Talk and/or the Gmail for Mobile application (unless I am on a plane). However, I don't miss critical information thanks to Gmail/Gtalk. The key is that it needs to live in an RSS feed.

For example, I pump local severe weather alerts from the National Weather Service into Feedcrier, which sends pings through IM. The premium version of the service will even send these to you when you're offline. You can also do the same with Yahoo Traffic feeds or tsunami alerts.

Turn Gmail Into a Searchable River of News Reader

I use the Google RSS Reader. However, I check Gmail more frequently. Again, this is even more true when I am on the go running from meeting to meeting.

I keep a group of my favorite feeds in a GReader folder called "Faves." You can browse them here. This special aggregation page has its own RSS feed. I take that feed and run it into RSSfwd, which will send you feeds to your email account. Another good service is R-Mail.

As the feeds arrive, they get labeled "Feeds" and archived. However, RSSfwd has a handy threading feature that keeps all of these posts together as a single Gmail conversation. The result is a giant river of news in Gmail! Even better, if I drop and add feeds to my Faves group, I don't have to re-import them into RSSfwd plus they're completely searchable. This technique will also work if you share your feeds with Newsgator Online too.

What hacks work for you? Share them in the comments.