Automating Your Swipe File

How to automate your swipe file

Insight from Mike Cordana

To write this newsletter, I have to read 100+ articles a week about all things operations.

To keep myself organized, this is what I use. Steal this for your own use!

Every Sunday, I used to do the following:

• Review Gmail for emails labeled "swipe file".

• Open each email and decide if it should go into the swipe file.

• Manually copy and paste the email content into the Airtable swipe file database.

To get this automated, I then set this up:

• Trigger: When a new email is labeled "Swipe File" in Gmail.

• Action 1: Extract email content (subject, body text, attachments).

• Action 2: Add the extracted email content to the Airtable swipe file database.

The key data points were:

• Email subject → Airtable record ("subject line").

• Email body → Airtable record ("content").

• Email attachments → Airtable record ("attachments").

I used Zapier but I’ve heard Make is solid as well. Once you pick your tool you should:

• Create a New Automation (called a Zap in Zapier and a Scenario in Make):

• Set the Trigger: Look for the Gmail app and select the trigger event as "New Email Labeled". Specify the "Swipe File" label.

• Set the Action(s):

  • Choose Airtable as the action app.

  • Configure the action to "Create a Record" in your swipe file database.

  • Map the data points from Gmail to the corresponding fields in Airtable.

• Test the Automation: Run a test to ensure that emails labeled "Swipe File" are correctly added to your Airtable database.

By following these steps, you'll automate the task of transferring emails from Gmail to Airtable, saving time in managing your swipe file.