February 14, 2018
As a wedding photographer and small business owner, I am always looking for time saving hacks, especially when it comes to client communication. Since I use email for just about everything, I knew that there had to be a way to minimize the amount of time I was spending in my inbox. I realized that I could save a lot of time by creating a document with email templates. I could then copy and paste those templates into my email drafts, personalizing as needed. But the coolest discovery didn’t come until someone introduced me to one of my favorite time saving tricks of all-time… and that’s Gmail “Canned Responses” application!
“Canned Responses” has been a lifesaver for my inbox management! You can actually create saved responses and use them within Gmail. It’s super easy to use, and in this blog post I am going to walk you through it step-by-step!
First, you’ll need to enable the “Canned Response” application in Gmail so that you can start using it:
Next, create your first saved “Canned Response”:
Now, we will insert your newly created “Canned Response” into an email:
That’s it – super easy! I will save you the details on how to manage your saved responses, because it’s all extremely straight forward from here!
The great news is that you can use your Gmail “Canned Responses” for everything such as:
But isn’t this super impersonal?
It’s only as “impersonal” as YOU make it out to be! I like adding personal touches here and there as I respond to each email individually. The Canned Responses will help provide body to your emails, but you want to make sure you’re responding to the sender’s questions/comments as needed.
That’s it! You have potentially saved yourself hours over the course of the next year! I hope you love implementing this little trick into your workflow – I know I did! Here’s to INBOX ZERO!