Inboxes refill relentlessly. Many of us spend more than 10 hours a week on email. Read on for ways to make your inbox a less stressful spot.
You’re reading Wonder Tools. I’m Jeremy. I expect to spend more than 100 hours on email between now and the end of 2022. That’s why I’m looking for — & sharing— ways to streamline email. Your tips and suggestions are welcome!
Stop at three sentences 🛑
three.sentenc.es calls for treating email messages like SMS whenever possible. Short and sweet: “Three.sentenc.es is a personal policy that all email responses regardless of recipient or subject will be three sentences or less. It’s that simple.”
Unsubscribe in bulk 🗑
Leave Me Alone lets you unsubscribe from a bunch of email at once. Or roll up newsletters into bundles to streamline your reading. Try it free, then $9/month.
Clean Email is similar and a bit cheaper, at $30/year or $50 to share with 4 friends or family members. Works with any email provider.
Mailstrom also lets you unsubscribe efficiently from lots of lists, or delete tons of messages quickly. Works with Outlook, Gmail and Yahoo. Try free without a credit card, then pay $60 to $200/year.
Create a single email to bundle updates
Mailbrew will send you a single daily bundling up your favorite newsletters and feeds. You can include updates from your favorite RSS feeds, YouTubers, Twitter accounts, or Reddit pages. My daily email includes weather, my calendar appointments, Uplifting News, a few Twitter accounts, and a couple of newsletters.
Subscription Zero is another tool for rolling up newsletters into a bundle.
Adopt a new email philosophy 📪
Inbox Zero means treating your inbox like a sink—clear it out periodically to avoid pileups. Taylor Lorenz argues instead for Inbox Infinity — not letting others dictate your priorities. Cal Newport goes further, arguing in the New Yorker that email makes us miserable. His latest book imagines a world without email. My take: unless urgency prohibits it, batch read & reply to email at most a few times a day. Otherwise it’s hard to focus on deep work.
Sort your email more efficiently 🗂
Chuck organizes your email by sender or day to help you manage messages. Thanks to P. Kim Bui for the tip.
Add voice to your email 🎙
Record Reverb lets you speak an email instead of typing it. You record a quick audio message and then put the link in your email. Listen to this quick example I recorded to hear three reasons why I like this audio approach. To send a video message, I use Loom to record, then paste the link into an email.
Forward messages to Evernote 📧
Evernote for Gmail If you rely on Evernote, this simple free Gmail add-on makes it easy to file important info and ideas from your inbox.
Launch meetings, Slack and Trello from Gmail 📨
Zoom for Gmail Launch a video meeting right from Gmail.
Slack for Gmail Send a message into Slack to discuss with team members.
Trello for Gmail Create a Trello card out of any email message.
Mail Merge for Gmail Send personalized emails to a list of people. Free for up to 1500 emails per day. Put names and any other personalized info in a Google spreadsheet. Then create an email in Gmail with placeholders where you want the personalized info. It’s surprisingly easy.
Consider a new email client 💌
🦸♀️ Here’s why I switched to Superhuman to spend less time on email
Other alternatives to consider: Hey, Spark, and Newton.
What’s your favorite email tip? Leave a comment 👇
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Unroll.me is also a great option for unsubscribing/creating digests of multiple emails. It’s great and free.
Thanks for sharing these helpful email tips. I particularly appreciate the emphasis on achieving inbox zero. It's a great feeling to have an empty inbox and know that all important emails have been taken care of. I highly recommend checking out this article for anyone looking to learn more about the inbox zero method: https://productive.fish/blog/inbox-zero/