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"Denis Duvauchelle is the CEO and co-founder of Twoodo Mail,\u00A0helping your team collaborate effectively with email through #hashtags.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nEmail is arguably one of the greatest things the Internet made possible.\r\nAs with all huge innovations, no one could have predicted how email was going to be used in the future. What began as a messaging service has now become a document exchange point and archive for 76 percent of people.\r\n\u201CWe asked respondents to list the tasks they use e-mail for. Note that communication between individuals\u2014the original intent of e-mail\u2014isn\u2019t even listed in the top five activities,&amp;quot; Harvard Business Review states. &amp;quot;A third of users find email search to be time-consuming and difficult to navigate. Average time to locate a document in email is two minutes.\u201D\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=&amp;quot;attachment_732299&amp;quot; align=&amp;quot;aligncenter&amp;quot; width=&amp;quot;400&amp;quot;] Image via HBR[/caption]\r\nSo what has gone wrong with email? The fact that we are trying to use it for everything. It\u2019s ironic that the task we use email to do most is the least streamlined, and consumes a huge amount of work time.\r\nWhat email is truly being used for now is collaboration. However, the tool has yet to catch up with this development. Extensions and plugins are frequently being installed and combined by users looking for the best solution to their collaborative problems. The \u201Ccollaboration tools\u201D segment of the SaaS industry has skyrocketed as a result.\r\nHowever, email is so deeply embedded in our psyche that encouraging people to convert to a new form of collaboration tool is deeply challenging.\r\nIs the only remaining solution to develop email into a more intuitive and pragmatic tool? Let\u2019s take one of the most famous and most disruptive email client as a case in point.\r\n\r\nGmail\r\nGoogle\u2019s email service is now 10 years old - yes, released in 2004 when everybody thought that it was silly to compete with Yahoo! and Hotmail.\r\nWe all know the state of affairs now.\r\nGmail has reiterated many times over the years to optimize its simple usefulness, like all Google products. Along with that have come helpful extensions and plugins that make your Gmail experience better.\r\nTwenty years ago, an email inbox was not a huge problem. Nowadays, it is a common complaint as to why employees are so unproductive and why on your \u201Coff hours\u201D you are still, in fact, working. Smartphones have given us 24/7 email access - both a blessing and a burden.\r\nMy personal favourites (extensions and features) for Gmail inbox management are as follows:\r\n\r\n\r\n\tYesware - check if your emails have been opened and replied to\r\n\tRapportive - scrape information about the people who have sent you emails\r\n\tBoomerang - rescheduling and reminding service for email\r\n\tGmelius - reorganize your gmail inbox to have the features you actually want\r\n\tIFTTT - \u201Cif this, then that\u201D - have your own preferred synching set up between programs\r\n\tLabels and stars system - basic \u201Cfiling\u201D of emails\r\n\tCanned responses - common email replies stored for quick sending\r\n\tAdd to calendar - appointment management\r\n\tAdd a todo - open a window in Gmail and add a tick-box todo\r\n\tKloudless - save and move attachments to Dropbox, Box, Google Drive\r\n\r\nNot the most surprising list to be sure, but extensive nonetheless. I take 10 extensions/features in order to manage my inbox info. Doesn\u2019t that seem a little much after 10 years in the making?\r\nWhilst there are a lot of options for after you have received an email - categorize it, reply to it [later], add yourself a task, send the attachment somewhere - there is still no way for you to send actions to the recipient and track if they get it done.\r\nYesware partially helps in this respect, by telling you if someone has opened and replied to your email. But you have no control over the tasks mentioned. You can tell yourself the tasks to do, but you can\u2019t tell someone else what to do.\r\n\r\nAlternatives for Gmail management\r\nActive inbox for Gmail\u00A0\r\nActiveInbox gives you the ability to add actions for yourself within an email. You can assign a to-do and add it to a project folder and add a due date.\u00A0On the day it is due, the email is extracted from your inbox and placed at the top with the to-do you added visible under the subject line.\r\nAlso, you can add to-dos by clicking on the box icon to the left of the email subject line. A drop-down menu appears, allowing you to add tasks whilst staying in inbox view. A summary of all your tasks, and those that are due today, are listed in the top-left corner of Gmail.\r\n\r\nAfter a two-week trial, ActiveInbox costs about $40 a year.\r\nGrexit\r\nGrexit lets you share labelled emails with others, write notes, and follow the notes others leave on the labelled and shared emails. This only works when others also have Grexit accounts.\r\n Any.do for Gmail\r\nThe Any.Do extension is a fairly simple to-do list. It is compact, existing only as an extension icon in the top-right corner. Click it whilst you are in the inbox or in the email view, and type a task. Add a due date from the calendar, and mark if it is priority or not (a red bar will mark it as a priority). The task appears as a simple tick-box to-do.\r\nTo see all the information about it, click on the task and a drop-down shows you details about the date, priority and folder.\r\n\r\n...but they still do not accomplish the collaboration necessary.\r\nNext: How to be a better emailer\r\n\r\nHow to be a better emailer\r\nTime is wasted when information has to be rehashed, rewritten, reorganized. Back when we gave each other tasks on paper, did we make two copies of the post-it notes? Usually not. It is smoother and makes more sense to be able to parse the information out before you hit the \u201Csend\u201D button.\r\nHere are five email tips the productivity coach Tara Robinson and I often discuss on how to reinvent the way you write and send email:\r\n\r\n1. Why am I sending this?\r\nBefore you send, think about what you want to get back. If you don\u2019t want to be caught in an endless back and forth about what\u2019s to be done, start by determining what exactly it is you want as an outcome.\r\n\r\n2. Include vital information in the subject\r\nIndicate whether it is a task, a question, just an FYI. Also include things like due dates, levels of importance and any other relevant indicators.\r\n\r\n3. Use clear concise words\r\nWhen you make your request, use the right kind of verb. Project verbs are big, chunky, oversized\u2013words like complete, draft, finalize, research, develop. Task verbs are small, succinct, actionable: call, buy, print, take, find.\r\nIf you need immediate action, choose a task verb.\r\n\r\n4. Think about the receiver\r\nThis might seem like a no-brainer but is so often overlooked. Ask yourself what the recipient will need in order to be successful. What information or resources are required? Does he have the necessary documents the right context?\r\n\r\n5. How truly important is this?\r\nConsider the true urgency of what you\u2019re requesting. You almost certainly experience other people\u2019s urgency all the time\u2013they are amped up and demanding an immediate response on something that isn\u2019t actually that urgent at all. The reason behind this out-of-whack urgency is simple: anxiety.\r\nThe anxiety is fueled by lack of trust; people worry that if their request isn\u2019t on fire, it won\u2019t get dealt with. And you may be falling prey to that same logic.\r\nDon\u2019t. Instead, be persistent and consistent: practice clarity about when something is truly urgent and when it\u2019s important yet not on fire. Communicate accordingly.\r\nThere are a number of effects that occur when giving the sender the power of organizing the information in the email. Responsibility is given to them to make sure that they are, for example, sending something of import and value, rather than wasting the receiver\u2019s time. It forces them to think critically about what they are sending - how can this task be prioritized, when do I need this question answered, do I need this person to approve my next task?\r\nThis is the future of the use of email. Actions should live within our conversations so that the flow of our daily lives is not interrupted by having to go back and read emails, or extract tasks to add to yet another list."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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