I’ve been using a nifty little add-in for Gmail that I thought was worth sharing. Boomerang for Gmail gives you greater control of your e-mails by allowing you to hide them for specified periods of time and/or send them at later dates.
Delaying when you see a message
Clicking on the Boomerang button allows you to make a message in your inbox disappear for a while. You can set when it returns to your inbox, exactly when you think that you’ll be ready to act upon it:
Delaying when you send a message
Boomerang also allows you to delay when you send a message. You can write your message now but set it to go out later at a time of your choosing:
Automatic reminders to follow up
Boomerang also can remind you to follow up on a sent message:
This functionality of delayed seeing and/or sending is extremely useful and helps me get closer to my goal of ‘inbox zero.’ If you’re using Gmail, I encourage you to try out Boomerang.
NudgeMail
For those of you who aren’t using Gmail (and, really, why wouldn’t you be?!), check out NudgeMail. NudgeMail also allows you to have messages disappear for a while and then return to your inbox. Here are some sample NudgeMail commands:
Hope one of these tools is helpful to you (and, oh, here’s that picture of Karl)!
“Zero Inbox” is my daily goal. I can’t leave my office until its cleared, even if I have unfinished replies in my drafts folder.
However, I got the best advice on email from Tim Ferris (4 Hour Workweek). He suggests only checking email once or twice a day rather than always having it open. If you try it you’ll find you don’t have to reply to as many (when its going to multiple people) because someone will usually do it before you. Also, you stop becoming a rat looking for a pellet, in email form 😉
I’ve found Boomerang to be very useful for scheduling tasks. By simply having the email return at a more convenient time, I find that it maintains the same level of urgency as other inbox items, as opposed to being relegated to the often over-looked ‘later’ stack. I do wish that the emails would return to the top of my inbox, though the boomerang label helps notify me of any pending emails.
Hi Luis,
Thanks for your comments about Boomerang. You can now have messages return to the top of the Inbox. Just to to your Boomerang Settings under “Manage scheduled messages” on the Boomerang menu and check the box for “At the top of your inbox “. Please let us know if you have any other comments or questions at support@baydin.com.
Using e-mail clients right is so important. I would like to share my own method for managing e-mail effectively which can be found on my blog:
http://blog.beezway.com/2011/11/e-mail-and-business-practices.html