Dealing with emails isn’t the most fun way to kill time. That’s why most of us want to open and close our inboxes as quickly as possible. Over the years, Gmail has added more and more features to achieve that goal.

Try out some of these hacks and see if they help reduce the time you spend in Gmail. From making emails more usable to giving you a better overview of the messages you need to process, you'll find at least a few of them useful.

Google Tasks is built right into Gmail on the web, via a right sidebar that you can open or hide with a single click. If you want to quickly turn an email into a task, it’s easy: With an email open or one or more emails selected in a list, click the Add to Tasks button at the top (it looks like a checkmark in a circle).

The email will be added to the list in Google Tasks that you last used (you’ll notice that there’s a list of email tasks, if you need one). If it’s not already open, the Google Tasks sidebar will appear, allowing you to edit the details of the new task and add a time and date if needed. A link to the email in Gmail will also be included in the task.