There is no denying that email is one of the most important tools for running your business. But we often have a love-hate relationship with our inboxes, don’t we?!
On one hand, it can help you reach out to people quickly and easily, and help us conduct several important business-running activities, on the other hand, it can practically consume all your time and can get very distracting.
But lucky for us, there are a number of smart, nifty, and cool tools out there that can make your email management a walk in the park. Here is a short list of some such handy tools:
Spam is one thing that is forever annoying and I think everyone would agree. However, most our spam comes from subscriptions we made at one point of time that have been rendered moot now.
If you are looking to clean up your inbox and get the mess under control, Unroll.me is one tool that can help you out here.
Once you sign up, you will get a list of all the subscriptions you made and you can quickly sign out of the ones you don’t want anymore. What’s better, the tool compiles all of the remaining subscriptions into one big rolled up email and you can schedule exactly when you want the email delivered to you.
This way all the distracting emails that clutter your inbox are taken care off and you can focus on the important ones. The tool is quick and easy to use.
If you want to tool that only helps you manage your email but also run your entire business from the inbox, Hiver is your solution.
It is a tool that primarily aims to boost productivity and get things done by improving collaboration within the team.
You can share emails by adding a Gmail label to the email and sharing that label using the Shared Labels feature, for instance. You can share labels when you want to delegate a task to someone and you can even monitor the status of the task.
Hiver is a multi-featured tool. It has many other powerful features like Shared Notes, Email Schedule, Email reminders, Shared Mailbox and much more.
The best thing about Hiver is that it allows you to get things done with a couple of clicks right from your inbox. It is simple to use and it completely integrates into your email platform.
Despite your efforts control your urge to check email every 10 secs, the ping of every email notification is just not letting you be. If that’s the case, Inbox Pause is the tool for you.
Just as the name suggests, this tool freezes your inbox for given amount of time and holds all the incoming mail. Once you unfreeze it, then all the held emails will be delivered to your inbox.
This way you can make sure that email is not distracting you from your work and also keep your email addiction under control.
Once you download and install the tool, your inbox will have a pause button which you can click to stop receiving any emails and once you are ready to check back in, you can hit unpause.
The tool is simple to use and seamlessly integrates into your inbox.
- Sidekick from Hubspot
Remember those times when you send an important email and are pacing around the room waiting for a response and wondering if the other person even read your email?
Well, we can solve the second part of the problem. Sidekick is a tool that lets you know if the recipient read your email; you will get a notification when the other person opens your email.
Also, you will be able to see the profiles of the people whom you contacted such as their Job title, contact history, social media activity, mutual connections etc.
The tool, in a way, helps you stay informed about the recipient, so that you can use this data to approach them strategically.
Checker Plus is a Chrome extension tool for the Gmail platform. It helps you manage multiple email accounts, so you don’t have to keep shifting between different accounts to check the emails.
One of the popular features is the instant notification even when you are offline. So if your business involves responding promptly to emails or you are just a fan of notifications, this is the tool for you.
Without having to open Gmail, the tool will give you desktop notifications with the option to read, listen or delete the email.
Also, the voice notification option is another cool feature. If you are away from your laptop, taking a call or cooking, you can choose to have the email read to you, even if Gmail isn’t open.
If you only you could gamify the process of clearing your inbox, oh wait, it has been done already!
If you find the thought of sitting down and clearing your inbox daunting and boring, and if you are a competitive person, then this tool is right up your alley.
You just have to enter your email address and the game begins. It gives you 5 seconds to decide what you will do with an email – reply, delete, or hold.
You will be awarded a certain number of points for each action and will be penalized when you go overtime. When choose to reply to an email, you will have by default about 3 minutes to finish the email, but you can always add more time if you need it.
This free tool can definitely turn boring inbox organization into a light and fun job.
Wrapping up
The list is obviously not exhaustive; there are gazillions of tools at your disposal out on the web. The important thing to remember is that you must choose the right tools that are quick, easy-to-use, and deliver as promised. The only best way to figure out is to try different options. Having said that, the above list is a great place to start, you won’t be disappointed!
