One of the latest feature of GMail - 'Multiple Inboxes' has made my life easy. It is very flexible and highly customizable feature. I have noticed some of my followers on twitter are wondering how to effectively use this feature. So let's see how to use this excellent feature to save our time and be more productive.
Although you can use this feature in many different ways, I'll show you how I am using it to save my time. If you receive lots of mails on daily basis and struggle to read/answer all of them in time, here is a good solution for you.
I receive about 150 mails (avg) daily. These mails include social media notifications/alerts, RSS subscriptions, readers mails, mails from peers and other random stuff.
Earlier all these mails were stored in one location (inbox) and I used to process them in reverse order (older-to-newer). This methodology was a big time-waster. Then I found an intuitive solution to this problem. I enabled the Multiple Inboxes feature and created 3 new inboxes. Then I created several filters such that a partucliar type of mail lands in its respective inbox.
For example, any mail coming from Digg will automatically land in Social Media inbox. This helped me in segregating the mails according to their type. Once you configure this feature, its on autopilot. The benefit of this approach is that you can process the high priority mails first, leaving less important mails to be processed later.
Let me give you an example, how to create an inbox and how to create a supporting filter to automate this segregating process.
1. Enable feature - Go to Settings -> Labs and enable the Mutiple Inboxes feature.
2. Create a label for new inbox - Go to Settings -> Labels and create a new label. Choose an appropriate name for the inbox. Let's assume you want to name your new inbox - 'Feed Subscriptions'. Your aim is to filter out all your incomng subscription mails such that they automatically land in this new inbox.
3. Create a new inbox - After creating the label, you will find a new Multiple Inboxes tab in settings. 
Go to this tab and remove all the default pane entries in it. Now write label:Feed Subscriptions in the first pane. Choose 'Below the inbox' from 'Extra panels positioning:' option. This will ensure that the new inbox is placed right below in inbox.
4. Create filter - The last step is to create required filters. Remember, you may have to create many filters but it will be one time process. For example you want all your incoming mails from no-reply@digg.com should land in this new inbox. To achieve this, go to 'Settings -> Filters -> Create a new filter'. Paste the email address in From and click Next Step. Select the Skip the Inbox (Archive it) option. Now check the Apply the label: and choose the 'Feed Subscriptions' label from the drop down box. Click Create Filter and done.
Similarly, you can create more inboxes and required filters to completely automate this process and group your incoming mails according to their type and priority.
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