Our readers asked for more tips about productivity and email, so here is a tip that combines both subjects. Boomerang is a tool that you can use in Gmail or Outlook that can:
- Schedule emails
- Schedule followup reminders
- Setup notifications when someone hasn’t responded to your email by a certain day.
These are just a few of Boomerang’s features. The Gmail/Google Apps version is free, and the Outlook version is $29.99 (one time) with a 30-day free trial.
Here are some ways you might use Boomerang for work:
- An accountant can schedule recurring emails to remind clients about tax deadlines.
- A sales rep can schedule followup emails to be sent to prospects.
- A consultant that serves international clients can schedule emails to be sent in the recipients’ time zones.
- An account manager can schedule holiday/birthday notes to send to customers.
- A medical office can schedule appointment reminders for patients.
You can also use Boomerang to clean up your inbox. If you get a lot of email newsletters, offers, and coupons early in the morning, you can Boomerang those emails to be sent back to you later in the afternoon when you have time to read them.
Here’s a bonus tip for those of you with Gmail or Google Apps: Boomerang also has a tool called “
The Email Game” that helps folks like me who are drowning in email. Once you enter your account information, The Email Game helps you make quick decisions about how you want to handle your messages. You can respond to an email right away, archive it, or “Boomerang” it and have it sent back to you at a later time.
I tried it myself, and it made the arduous process of cleaning out my inbox (somewhat) fun! However, I’m going to have to play this game many more times before I clear out the 24,000+ messages in my inbox.
