Staying on Top of Your Google Chat Messages
Staying on Top of Your Google Chat Messages
Tags: Google Chat
At the Arboretum, we can get messages from colleagues in multiple ways—email, chat, phone, text—and it can be hard to keep track of who sent what where. Google Chat has a few features to help you manage your chat-based “inbox.”
If you open up your Chat window and mouse over any of the messages someone else has sent to you, you’ll see a few options pop up.
The first icon, the “smiley face,” gives you options to respond with an emoji. This is a good way to quickly acknowledge a message from someone else that doesn’t necessarily need a verbal response. Because chat is such a quick, time-sensitive communication medium, it’s important to let the other person know you’ve received their message and you’re not “ghosting” them!
The second icon allows you to “un-read” a message so you still see the red notification badge in your list of chats. This is a good way to flag a conversation that you need to return to.
Clicking on the last icon, the ellipses, reveals a couple of other options.
Choosing “Forward to inbox” allows you to send the chat thread to your email inbox, where you can then see it alongside other messages you’ve received. Email is often a better medium for longer-form communication than chat, so consider doing this if the message warrants a more lengthy and / or complicated response!
Choosing “Add to Tasks” lets you create a new task for that chat message, effectively creating a new “to do” for your list.
Finally, the options will look slightly different if you mouse over one of your own messages. In this case, you’ll also see a pencil icon that allows you to edit your message, and an additional choice to Delete your message under the ellipses icon.
Want to learn more about what types of communication are best suited for what medium? Check out the Scheduling Tools and Guidelines document on the Work Together page!