Inbox Zero being a discipline  to process email as you go along and not keep tons of unread mail that will hold you a guilty hostage to not Getting Things Done.

Anyway, my heart was in the right place, I was about halfway through the message and then zap.  My Gmail web interface goes away and I get this message:

It’s all telling me that they’re locking down my Gmail account for up to 24 hours because of “suspicious” activity.  Now maybe they consider my cleaning up my inbox “suspicious activity”.  They give this list of items that might have caused the lockdown, 4 out of 5 I know I haven’t done.

#5 says your browser can be doing it to you.  Well that would be fine and dandy except I’m using Google’s own browser, Chrome.

They let me back into my email after about 6 hours and I get through another hundred or so.  Today the quest starts again and just as I was down to about 100 messages, zap.  I’m being unusual again.

I’m now waiting them out, again.

What have I learned?

The cursed lockdown only seems to affect the Gmail web interface.  If you already have an email client configured for IMAP you can continue to use your account.

As much as I have bored everyone by tireless pushing Gmail as the only true path for email, Google’s lockdown ability proves that Gmail has a troubling hold over your email that always hangs over your head like a pile of excrement.

As far as Merlin Mann?  I guess it wasn’t really his fault, except Inbox Zero does inject a level of guilt in your dealings with email that’s a pretty strong motivator for a Jewish-guy like me.

“Doing” email — reading, answering and filing has become the one of the main occupations of the knowledge worker, it has also become a deep black hole sucking down your time and concentration.

There’s some advice on the NYTimes site for how to master your inbox.  Here’s the net-net.

Don’t dip into your in-box more than 3 times an hour. (Contrast this to previous post on Single Tasking that said only check your mail 3 times a day).

Clear out your inbox -

Set aside an hour or two to respond to every important message that has dogged you in the last couple months (anything older than that is too ancient to bother with). Next, move everything else into a new folder called Archive — this will be your storehouse of old mail. (Note: if you’re using Gmail and why wouldn’t you be?  Archive is the built-in concept for dealing with mail you’re finished with).

Now that your inbox is clean and in a state of grace, keep it clean by dealing with email this way:

• Archive it
• Respond to it
• Forward it
• Hold it for later — be careful of this one
• Delete it (The Times left this one out, but it’s the most important).

Spend a couple of hours this weekend — clear your inbox, you’ll feel so good.

My gushing fanboy support for Gmail always had one caveat — it couldn’t be used offline. What to do in planes and locations without wi-fi?

Problem solved.

Gmail now uses the open source Gears technology which allows websites to be used offline by storing necessary information while online.

You can now read your already received email and compose new messages while offline. When you’re back online the messages will be sent.

If you’re a Gmail users, and why wouldn’t you be, go to the Labs menu in settings and enable Offline. This one put a menu entry in of Offline (1.0) in the upper right corner of the screen. Choose that option and you will be guided through installing Gears, if necessary, and storing information on your computer.

There is even a “Flaky Connection Mode” that can be used to stay safe when you can’t trust your connection, as is often the case with public wi-fi spots like coffee shops.

More info from the source.

As if my favorite email service could get better, but there it goes again.  After already singing its praise today, I discovered the newest function added to Gmail – to do lists.

You could long keep you to do list directly in messages in Gmail or by using a Firefox plug-in associate your Remember the Milk list with your Gmail.  Now through the Labs interface (where they include the new stuff) you can turn on Tasks.  That allow you a new action of Add to Tasks after selecting a message, or better yet just use the keyboard shortcut  Shift-T and that message will be added to your to do list.

You can also add non-messages to your to do list.  To do items can be indented and moved up and down in the list to prioritize them.

If you don’t use Gmail, you should.  Sign-up for it here.  Read about this in the Gmail blog.

And since I’ve already outted myself as a raving Gmail fanboy, I’m declaring the rest of the week Gmail appreciation week and will post hints and features for the rest of the week.

Use Gmail?  If you do, you have a free cross-platform, accessible anywhere-you-have-access-to-the-web perfect place to keep your lists. 

When I say lists, I mean the important ones.  There are plenty of useful programs and services for keeping track of the old to-do list.  I’m talking about the real ones like grocery lists, and errand lists and the “honey do” lists.

Just start a new message, give it a title, no addressee necessary, type your list and when you’re finished save it as a draft.  Your list will always be available from a computer on the internet as well as your Blackberry, G1 or iPhone. 

If you don’t use Gmail, you should.  Sign-up for it here.

I hope I don’t feel the same way about Canned Responses.  This new feature to Gmail is available through the Labs menu which showcases new “experimental” features that you can use in your Gmail.

It allows you to save standard replies that you can give to your Gmail message.  While I can’t see this feature being very useful in personal email.

“Thank you for your proposal of marriage, but…”

More useful might be if you use your Gmail for your business and need to send any kind of repetitive messages, like the kind that are often used in customer service situations.

More about Gmail Canned Responses[via WebMonkey]

Comment about whether Canned Responses is as stupid as Gmail Goggles.

You’ve probably noticed that here in Enquiring Mimes-land we like Zoho.  They have built a great suite of free web products and they keep offering something new.  They have just plugged one of the largest holes in their productivity suite by releasing Zoho Mail.

With their obvious competition with Google and Google Docs, Zoho need to provide their users the kind of mail support offered by Gmail and in many ways they have bested Gmail, by providing functionality that includes the best of webmail and the best of traditional email readers like Outlook.

In one clear way Zoho has trumped Gmail by being the first to offer offline support for their webmail.  Zoho, ironically, takes advantage of the Google Gears technology to provide offline support.  When you have Gears installed you can configure Zoho Mail for how many messages you’d like to be able to see while offline and Zoho automatically can sense the change in state when you go offline and switch you to offline mode.

In a couple of interesting ways, Zoho Mail has given their users a choice of how they’d like to work with their email:

Folders vs. Labels – Zoho Mail supports both old-style folders for storing and classifying your email – Outlook-style as well as labels Gmail-style.

Threads vs. Lists – In a similar way, Zoho Mail gives you the choice between seeing your messages grouped by conversations – Gmail-style or as a serial list – Outlook-style.

Signup for Zoho Mail by registering a free Zoho user account and you can choose your @zoho.com email address.

Zoho Mail Features

• Intuitive User Interface
• Unlimited Storage
• Support for Multiple Email Accounts
• @zoho.com Email addresses for all Zoho Users
• Zoho Writer, Sheet & Show Integration for opening attachments
• Offline Support
• Zoho Chat Integration
• Folders (hierarchical) & Labels Support
• Conversation & Normal Email Views
• Multiple Search Options
• Search within attachments
• Anti-Virus Checks
• Spam Filtering
• POP Access
• Import Contacts
• Address Book Support
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Multi-language Support
• Font Family & Size customization
• Layout Customization
• Email Archiving Support
• Message Filters Support
• All Mail – View
• Flagging Support
• Signature Options
• Vacation Auto-Reply
• Email Forwarding
• Ask Receipt

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• Google Docs Inches Offline

Now the problem is emailing while drinking.  Nothing can be worse than having a couple of martinis with the folks from work and deciding it’s finally time to send an email to an ex- or to finally set the boss straight.

The Google gang has come to your rescue with Google Goggles.  If you choose to use this functionality in your Gmail (it’s in the Labs menu), when you try and send an email at a suspicious time on say a Friday or Saturday night (this is configurable), you’ll be asked a series of small math problems (you can set the difficulty) that have to be successfully answered before the message will be set.

If you keep the difficulty set to low, you’ll have no problem answering the questions without a calculator, but it will stop you long enough to think – do I really want to send this note?

Via webmokey

Also, if you don’t keep up with slang – “Beer Goggles” is an expression meaning that possible “romance” may set in later in the evening when other people start to look better to you as a result of your imbibing a few beers.