💤 Get Shit Done, Calmly, by Snoozing emails
Email lets me message anyone who has an email address. Anyone. It doesn't matter if they're using email from a different company.
Ask Twitter to let you DM your friends on Facebook. Ask Slack to connect with Microsoft Teams. And tell me what they say.
Plus, email's basic features are powerful tools for creating calm.
Searching, filtering, and archiving can all be used to create a calm, yet connected, experience.
Much of our unhappiness with email stems from how it's been misused: spam and bad practices can make email an unpleasant chore. One bad practice is leaving email in the Inbox, when nothing can be done with it right now.
You know the type of email I'm talking about. You can't Archive it, because it's still relevant. If you remove it from your Inbox, you could forget to deal with it later.
But you can't do right now what needs doing, for whatever reason. And if you let it fester in your Inbox, you have to see it and leave it. Every. Single. Time.
Today we'll tackle this timing mismatch problem using Snooze.
Start enjoying your email. It's not a chore anymore, it's an opportunity to Get Shit Done.
Get Shit Done, Calmly, with Snooze
Snooze lets me delegate an email to myself in the future. When, for any reason, an email needs my eyeballs on it in the future, I Snooze it. I've Snoozed emails for all sorts of reasons, including:
- I didn't have the information they wanted, but would get it next Tuesday.
- I didn't think that, of all the people cc'd on the email, I was the best person to respond. But I did want the sender to get a response. If nobody else answered after a week, I would respond myself or loop in someone better.
- I didn't want to search my email for tickets to the music show. I snoozed the email with tickets attached until the date of the show.
- I had typed out a quick response, but wanted to think on it over the weekend and maybe adjust it before sending.
Snooze is Gmail's killer feature.
I've switched email services, but returned to Gmail because developing a Snooze-like feature isn't priority.
When do you Snooze an email
Knowing when to Snooze an email is important for it being an effective aid to email.
This is not where I describe how to Snooze an email. Check out Gmail's short, yet up-to-date, documentation.
This is where I describe when to Snooze an email. It's not just a lazy shortcut to clearing out your inbox.
If you prefer visual aids, I've drawn out a shitty flowchart. It's right after the numbered steps.
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Go to your Gmail Inbox. (If you don't use Gmail/G Suite, check if your email has a feature like the one described here. You may need to replicate this functionality some other way.)
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Read the next email. Then answer the following questions.
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Do you need to do something? No: Archive it. Yes: Go to Step 4.
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Can that something be done right now? Yes: Do it now. No: Go to Step 5.
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Decide till when to Snooze it. Think about when in the future you would be able to do that something. If you know exactly when, Snooze it till then. If not, Snooze it until a date you think you'll have more information to make a better decision.
Snooze is one step towards Inbox Zero
If you don't already strive for Inbox Zero, just starting to Snooze is a great first step.
If you already try Inbox Zero, but don't yet Snooze, I think it will help you out.
Inbox Zero is not about clearing out your Inbox. It's actually about using your Inbox as a way to visualize the limited amount of time and energy that you actually have in a day.
Maybe you're getting so much email that ignoring most of them seems the easiest way to not deal 🙅🏽♀️ Or you're trying to get through it all, but spending hours at it. Then there's too much noise and you need to start taking action.
Thanks for reading all the way through! Let me know what you think by replying to the email. Otherwise (at)me on Twitter or Mastodon.