New: Know When Your Sent Emails Are Read!

• Create an “*Inbox” circle and include the people you'd like to see every post from. The friends, family, and acquaintances circles are on top by default.

• Create a "Read later" circle and include no other person (Google+ calls it an empty circle). When you see a post you want to read later, share it only with the "Read later" circle. Then when you have some time, open that circle and read through (and delete) the saved posts.

• Similarly, create an (empty) "Drafts" circle. When you have an idea for a post, but no time to write it, draft a rough version and share it to the "Drafts" circle. Edit the draft by using "Edit this post" from the drop down menu. Then, when the post is complete, copy it to a new post that you can then share to your circles and delete the draft post.

• Yet again, create a similar (empty) circle called “Bookmarks” so you can go back and find that tidbit of information to read and use again and again.

• If you would like to mute future notifications on a particular post you can do so by opening notifications, then opening the particular notification you wish to mute. Look at the bottom right hand corner of the notifications box. There will be an option to mute that notification.

More creative suggestions:

Circles do not have to be shared with anyone at all. In fact, you can create an empty circle, and name it whatever you want. Knowing this fact, you can use circles in several different ways - as a bookmarking tool, a diary, or notepad. This brilliant idea was gathered from +Brian Swetland and +Arun Shroff.

To start, just go into your circles page. Click on "Create circle".

Re-name your circle to what you want it to be, and then click on "Create empty circle."

Start adding content to this circle! No one will see the content but you.

You can use this circle as a persona diary, an exercise log, a notepad to keep track of ideas, or maintain a to-do list. You can also create multiple empty circles to cover all your needs. You can save voice memos to your private Stream, using your Google+ Android app. Remember to enable Instant Share, which will save photos and videos to a private Picasa album for you. Turn on the Camcorder app on your phone and hit Record. Say what you need, and then click on Stop. You'll be able to go into your Google+ account and open up your Photos page. Click on "Photos from your phone" and you'll be able to select your recording to share to your private circle. Via +Arun Shroff.
You can use the empty circle as a Drafts folder. When you're feeling ready to share your thought, link or photo with the World, just click on the Share button, and add the circles. (You will get a warning that your original post was not meant to be re-shared. Just ignore and post.)
You can create a "Read Later" circle and share stuff to it that you'll catch up on later.

2. Keep a Journal Between Friends/Significant Others

Just as you don't necessarily need to add anybody to a circle, there's also nothing wrong with adding just one or two people to a circle.
You can create a travel journal circle. Share pictures, interesting links and notes about the places you visited to this circle. If you want to invite others to join in on this circle, I suggest you write a public status update and say something like, "I'm traveling to Europe. If you'd like to read only my travel posts, comment or click on the +1 button to join my travel journal circle." Then add those people to your circle.
3. Save Favorite Hangouts

Did you get to hangout with someone famous? Did you and your friends have a collectively awesome reaction to a funny YouTube video? Want to preserve some of your favorite hangouts? Create a "Favorite Hangouts" circle and use it exclusively for sharing hangouts.