Using Google Reader and Gmail together for productivity

I have found that Google Reader and Gmail used together is the perfect tool for bloggers, or anyone who reads a lot of stories and wants to remember/cover them. While using Google Reader if I read something I want to write about, either here or in my upcoming personal blogs, or I just want to remember to get back to it, I don’t like to take the time to go to the site, bookmark it, organize that and so on.

Instead, what I do is, I just email myself the story. I have a Gmail account as well so the exchange is pretty much instantaneous, I now have my favorite stories in my inbox. Now this is the way to do it if you just read a few posts a day, but what if you actually need to organize this. Read on to take a look at how I organize all my info from Google Reader. I will utilize two methods I have posted about, Folders4Gmail and using the “+” sign to organize and filter Gmail email.

Our first step is to install Folders 4 Gmail, see the post on how to install it. Once that’s done, you should be able to create a folder structure. Let’s head on to the labels section in the settings and create a label named “stories” (I will of course allow you to choose a different name, I’m nice). In my case I save stories for two reasons, I either want to try something out, or post it on Hack Your Day, my personal blog or one of the blogs where I guest write (gHacks, MakeUseOf). I would create two additional labels accordingly, “stories/post”, “stories/try”.

• for all emails sent to “name+poststory@gmail.com” skip the inbox, and assign the “stories/post” label
• for all emails sent to “name+trystories@gmail.com” skip the inbox and assign the “stories/try” label

We’re ready to start reading posts! When you arrive at one you like, click the email button below the item and you will see a form to send an email. For email just type the applicable address (eg: name+poststory@gmail.com) and send it off. If you want to be super productive and organized, you can also change the title to “0001 - subject” so you can keep better track (I do this, now combined with my Moleskine).

When you take a look at you emails you should see new items under the posts, inside the story label. You have just organized some info very well, yay! I have also created a “stories/archive” label. When I posted/tried what I wanted I remove the original label and add the “stories/archive” label. This way I am left with a searchable database of all the things I posted about and tried.