The Marble Jar Channel

Hi, everyone.  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'll show you how I use the html mail codes for the iPhone (and iPad) to send regular reminder emails for client sessions from my mobile devices. In my last video, I showed how to send regular client session reminder emails using Gmail's templates.  Unfortunately, that all has to be done from a browser since templates aren't a feature in the mobile version of Gmail.  So, I figured out how to do this from the mail app on the iPhone.  It takes some doing to set it all up, but after that I actually find it easier and faster than using Gmail templates.  So, basically, I'm taking advantage of 2 things: 1) the "mailto" code that can be inserted into any html on a website that generates an email message when you click on the link.  Here's an example of a "mailto" code on a website.  Push it and you bring up a new email in your mail client.  The other thing I'm ...

Hi, everyone. This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar Channel and in today's video, I'll show you how I send email notifications or the same email text multiple times using Gmail templates. The non-profit counseling center that I used to work for did not have a system that sends automatic email reminders to clients for upcoming sessions.   As a therapist, I like to give people a heads up since it is helpful to know in advance if someone needs to cancel.  And, since we have a 24-hour notice policy for cancelations, it is also a nice courtesy to our clients.  For this reason, I send out my own email notifications one day before sessions.  Obviously, it would be great if these went out automatically, but I couldn't figure out a way to do this without having to pay for a subscription service, so I end up using Gmail's templates.  You can use Gmail templates to resend any email that has the same text and that you might want to send multiple times.  This ma...

Hi, everyone.  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'll show you how to forward specific emails using Gmail. There are lots of reasons why you might need to forward specific emails.  Maybe you don't check an email inbox frequently, but you want to make sure if a specific person sends you an email, you get it right away.  Or, maybe every time you get a newsletter, you forward it to someone in your family and you'd like for this to happen automatically.  Or, maybe you don't want to check your work email at all on vacation, but you want any emails that contain the key words from an important project you are working from to be forwarded to your personal email.  Whatever the reason, gmail will allow you to do this. This is not something that all email platforms will allow.  I use Yahoo mail for my junk email address (you can see my video on that if you are interested).  My Yahoo address is the one that I give out reflexive...

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar Channel and in today's video, I'll share some tips on how to organize your Gmail folders on a browser or iOS device. If you are like me, you spend a bunch of time during the day going through emails.  I try to get to Inbox Zero once a day, so this means that I'm making decisions for each email -- Delete, File, or Act on.  I have lots of videos about managing email if you are interested in this topic.  This video specifically covers those emails that you have decided to Save or File.  I've talked to a bunch of people who are fine to either delete emails or act on them, but really don't save many.  There are a bunch of reasons for this reluctance, but let's start by explaining how to  Add Folders This is pretty easy on both a browser or iOS device, but let's walk through it quickly.  On a browser, hit the More arrow below all of the existing folders, scroll down, and select Create...

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video I'll tell you why you really need a "Respond To" email folder for work. If you are like me, you probably receive emails from work on your phone.  You also get your personal emails on your phone.  I have 2 additional email addresses -- one for school and one for this YouTube channel, so instead of flipping back and forth between my four inboxes, I make use of the All Inboxes function on the iPhone.  This is great -- EXCEPT -- I really try to get to inbox zero one time per day.  That means that once per day I totally clean out my inbox by deleting emails, filing them, or acting on them -- or if the task is longer than 5m -- putting it on my task list.   The issue is this -- when I get a work email that I need to act on -- I don't want to do that during my home time.  BUT it bugs me that it is sitting in my inbox taking up space.  Particularly when I ha...

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today’s video I’ll share my secret to always remembering to follow up on emails. How many times has this happened to you?  You ask someone a question over email, you mentally cross it off your list, and then you totally forget to follow up to actually get the answer to the question?  Then, a couple of weeks later you’re like “Crap!  Did I ever hear back from so and so on that??” Okay — I’m super forgetful, so this used to happen to me all the time. I tend to remember when a question is urgent, but when I don’t need the answer right away — poof, it leaves my head as soon as the email leaves my outbox.  Some people are fantastic and quick at email responses, some are terrible, and some are pretty good some of the time. The thing is, YOU are the one that needs the answer to the question, so you can’t just assume you’ll get a response eventually.  It’s up to you to follow up....

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today’s video I’ll show you how to quickly turn an email, or really anything printable, into a PDF on your iPad.  Occasionally, I need to turn an email or photo into a PDF.  Maybe I need to upload it to Google Drive or draw on it.  There are workarounds for photos. If your email isn’t long, you can use one of those workarounds.  But for long emails, if I try to cut and paste the email into a PDF creating app and the formatting turns whacky, up until now I’ve been out of luck. I finally stumbled onto a hidden solution for this.  See the problem is that the native iPad email app doesn’t give you a share button.  So, say you have a long email with a bunch of formatting like this one.  You want to turn it into a PDF so that you can mark it up or save it or whatever.  If you try to copy and paste into Notability for example, you lose all of the images and formatting. ...

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in this video I'll talk about using Gmail as a single stream funnel for the electronic information that enters my world.  This is part of a series on my ADHD brain and all of the systems I use to compensate for a lack of internal structure and organization. If you've watched the overview video of my organizational apps, you know that I use Gmail as the central funnel through which all electronic data enters my world. Kind of like having one single inbox to check and work through. I just wasn't keeping up well when I had four different inboxes to deal with. Let's walk through what that looks like for each kind of information: Landline voicemail - okay -- this is archaic and I know a bunch of people who never check their landline voice mail. But I have a couple of old school relatives in my life who would be none too pleased if I never responded to their urgent voicemails. Verizon is the provider ...