It’s also worth knowing that * alphabetizes between _ and •, so tiered labels are easy.

There are many people that are behind you and need the same help! Here’s some good tips I can give as a virtual assistant/project manager.

1. If you use FF3, download Better Gmail and activate Folders4Gmail. Use this to create a list of folders that collapses.

2. Sart with general labels, then add in specifics. I do Clients -> Client name. (Sounds like you’ve gotten so far on that, the collapsing should make it easier to see.)

3. Archive everything more than 2 weeks old. Just DO this. Don’t think about it, don’t worry about it, just do it. Gmail will save it to be searched if you need it, but you probably won’t.

4. Once you’ve gotten the old stuff out, focus on getting the rest cleared. Be ruthless, delete, archive and label pages quickly. How?

Set up labels (which you’ve already done), change your Gmail settings to show 100 emails on each page, then use your keyboard shortcuts (http://r.evhead.com/hodgepodge/gmail-shortcuts.html) to first mark everything that can be deleted. One round trip through all the emails to delete. Back to the first page and then another round trip to archive everything you don’t need to see or put on a to do list.

Once you’re down to the emails you need to act on, act on them. Respond to anything that will take less than 2 minutes. Delegate anything that will take longer to a to do list. Archive them as you go. (Another trick? Use the Send and Archive button for Gmail, Gmail Settings -> Labs -> Send and Archive.)

5. After you’ve gotten this organized, stick with the routine. Get into the habit of checking email, archive, respond as necessary, add to dos as necessary and keep the inbox clear as possible.

I currently do all of the above and have done so for clients to get them organized so they can move forward with a new email process. The first steps are paralyzing until they’re done.

Try these things and see if it helps. Also, as an aside, I enjoy OmniFocus and Batchbook but you can use any project manager to keep track of the to do list.

Please don’t crucify yourself if you have 10 or so emails in your inbox. Inbox zero isn’t the ultimate goal here, taking away the stress of looking at your inbox is.

Test
- Apple
- Orange

That it would do the same in Gmail. Now Gmail does this:

Test
Test/Apple
Test/Orange

You have three labels in the same hierarchy instead of having apple and orange below Test only. Make sense? The / didn’t work. TBird wouldn’t let me use it.

I still like the web interface, however, because it can apply multiple labels to the same post.

Perhaps having multiple paths to email, by client, by priority, by topic – all of them – might help?

I integrate this with Gmail tasks for creating checklists for going away and so forth. I also have a single list in Gmail Tasks called Do in the next hour . ..where i can quickly assess my Actions and hit shift T on those i wantto list for immeidate action.

I really don’t understand why someone wants nested folders in Gmail. I have minimal folders – the whole point of Gmail to me is to stop using folders and use its awesome search capability. You can enable Quick Links in gmail to create the same functionality as folders on the fly =- if you really feel you must have some of your groupings saved for easy reference.
I’ve been running with Gmail and GTD inbox for two years. and the best part is i have stopped looking for alternatives…i really think its the go!

Or maybe it only works if you have sub-folders in Thunderbird (or other email app) and Gmail.

Newsletters
Newsletters/Important

I was about ready to ditch Google Mail until I could do sub-labels, which meant better organization and that accessing Google Mail with IMAP and Gnome Evolution is easier. I like using an offline e-mail application because there are some extra tools (like search folders based on unread messages, or messages from particular people, regardless of the folder they’re in) to help me stay on top of the messages.