Productivity tip: pause your GMail Inbox and hide new emails

Have you ever wanted to look at your GMail Inbox to find some information in an old email… but without being disturbed by all these new emails that will inevitably draft you away from your current focus and destroy your productivity?

At Theodo, we have found a really simple way to do just that! It is a trick based on Stylish to hide all unread emails on demand.

First install the Stylish extension for your favorite browser :

• the Chrome extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylish/fjnbnpbmkenffdnngjfgmeleoegfcffe
• the Firefox extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/stylish/

And then create a new “style” that you call “Gmail pause”:

.zE { display: none; }
.n1 a\[title^=Inbox\] {
  font-weight: normal !important;
  width: 2.5em;
  padding: 0;
  display: inline-block;
  overflow: hidden;
}

You can then hide or see your unread emails at will, using the small “S” icon in the top-right corner.

I hope it will be as revolutionary for your productivty as it was for me!