How This Intelligent Email Management System is Transforming My Productivity
Good news, there's a free trial to really experience its capabilities
In 2007, Marlin Mann held a talk at Google, introducing his new system - Inbox Zero.
I listened to the talk and chuckled as he described how getting his email in 1983 was simply astonishing.
An email meant that anyone could send a personal message to anyone else in a different location and get a response in a short time.
This was unheard of in the pre-digital era.
You had to write a letter, post it and simply wait for a response a week later.
Email had a personal connection as individuals connected with their peers and close friends. You couldn’t wait to check you email and see if there was a response.
Fast forward a few decades later in the 2000s and the relationship with email had morphed into something else - a disaster.
There were system notifications, operations alerts, sales pitches from existing and/or unknown vendors with huge file attachments, somebody's action-required-from-you email, and spam.
However, Mann had an insight into solving this problem.
He knew that time and attention were the finite resources knowledge workers were struggling to manage against a barrage of infinite demands.
This led to the birth of Inbox Zero: a system that would reduce the amount of stress and mental energy spent on managing one’s inbox.
Inbox Zero didn’t imply that you had zero emails; instead, you had a way to control it rather than letting email control you.
With the system, Mann introduced five strategies one could use to manage their inbox:
Delete - eliminate the email.
Delegate - forward it to someone who could do what the email required.
Respond - reply to the email.
Defer - setting the email in a location to attend to it later (snooze).
Do - do what the email required. e.g. send a report
Fast forward to 2025.
Do we still face the same challenges they had in the early 2000s? Absolutely.
Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant (2017) would write in Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy:
When I returned to work after Dave’s death, I was shocked by how many emails awaited me. Hundreds of messages had piled up, each one demanding a response, a decision, or a follow-up. I’d sit at my desk at Facebook, staring at the screen, feeling like I was drowning. I wanted to focus on my team, my family, but the inbox kept pulling me back.
Paula Davis (2021) in Beating Burnout at Work echoed a similar view;
By 2008, I was closing multi-million-dollar real estate deals, but I was also falling apart. My inbox was a war zone—hundreds of emails daily from clients, colleagues, and opposing counsel, each expecting instant replies. I’d wake up at 3 a.m., heart racing, checking my BlackBerry to make sure I hadn’t missed something critical.
I also found myself in a similar predicament.
I had a ton of disorganized emails in my inbox. Important updates were interspersed with spam and newsletter updates.
However, I stumbled upon an intelligent email management application that brought sanity to my inbox.
Let me explain how I got my sanity back and achieved Inbox Zero.
The Disadvantage of Modern E-mail Management Tools
Modern email tools - Gmail, Apple, Outlook etc. - are limited in that a user has to manually label e-mail into different categories.
A further limitation is that you have to manually review your inbox to determine what to delete or respond to.
This translates to lost time and attention managing your inbox - up to 2 hrs per day as Missive reports.
Suppose I told you that this doesn’t have to be the case anymore?
I introduce you to SaneBox, a tool that simplifies email management using AI.
What’s more, the tool can be trained to learn your email reponse patterns so that you no longer drown in unread messages.
It moves you from here:
To here:
This way, you only spend a few minutes each day reviewing your inbox without the overwhelm of unnecessary digests and news that steal your attention.
To get started:
Go to the website here: SaneBox.
Select the email service you currently want to use SaneBox for.
It works with different services - Google, Office 365, iCloud etc.,
Once connected, SaneBox will walk you through the process of cleaning up your email step-by-step.
Inbox folder – emails that need attention today
Sane Black Hole folder – annoying emails that you want to be deleted
Sane Receipts folder – coupons, receipts, and work
Sane News folder – keep newsletters and mailing lists out of your inbox
Sane Later – automatically keep unimportant email from your inbox
Enable various options to easily manage the application
Sane No Replies – maintains a copy of emails that still need a reply.
Sane Snooze – defers unimportant emails. They automatically reappear in the inbox when you need them – next day, week, or month
Sane Reminders – remind you about important dates and times to take action.
Once you setup the application, you should see these new labels under your Gmail.
Your inbox - 10 emails.
This way, you only focus on the 10 emails for the day and proceed to your deep work.
These are 3 main benefits that influenced me to embrace SaneBox
#1 Training
Sometimes, SaneBox classifies email as SaneLater or SaneNews yet it is part of your important inbox.
Simply drag it to the inbox - SaneBox remembers and knows what to do next time!
#2 Sane BlackHole
I enjoy this the most.
Suppose you receive email newsletters you no longer read but don’t want to unsubscribe?
Send it to the BlackHole.
It gets filtered and sent to trash.
#3 Email Deep Scan
SaneBox also introduces scanning email to remove old and unnecessary emails, saving you storage space!
Simply get started with the 14 day free trial to see its transformative impact!
Click here to redeem a $15 SaneBox credit now!
P.S. SaneBox has been perfecting email AI for over a decade (rated #1).
With plans starting at just $24/year, there's never been a better time to upgrade your inbox intelligence.
That's it for now.
Watch out for next week’s productivity insights in your inbox.
As always, fresh ideas are welcome. Please feel free to send in your feedback, thoughts, questions, and suggestions—I read them all!
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Catch you again soon.
Have a great day :)