Ever sent yourself a reminder email? You don’t have to.
Email is meant to help you communicate. Therefore, using it as a task management and notification tool comes with a set of limitations.
Why you should never send yourself another reminder email
Simply put, using email for task management is like washing your car with just water and old newspapers – it does a sloppy job.
Why do I feel so strongly about this? I’ve managed tasks with email for years and experienced first hand all the issues this brings such as:
- Cluttering your inbox
- Making you waste time searching for tasks because not all of them are in emails
- It doesn’t allow you to track progress, making it difficult to see the big picture
- It’s very limited in terms of categorization
- It’s plain old inefficient
It didn’t take long before I started thinking about using something else. I’ve tried and tested dozens of software solutions, only to come back to email again for one reason – I just HAVE to use it because of other people.
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How to turn your inbox into a powerful task management hub
So now you’re facing a different problem – you have to use email but it’s just not good enough for task management.
To solve this issue, I started using Sendtask to manage all the actionable items that somehow ended up in my inbox or anywhere else. Sendtask gives you all the task management features you need for efficient work and collaboration directly in your inbox.
Here’s a step-by-step guide on you can use it to take control of tasks in your inbox immediately:
Step 1) Add [due_date]@sendtask.io as the email recipient
To send any actionable information to your Sendtask account, forward or start writing a normal email, only this time enter [due_date]@sendtask.io as the recipient.
For example, enter tomorrow9am@sendtask.io if you need to do something the next day at nine in the morning. You can see a full list of email deadline formats here.
Step 2) Add the task title in the subject line
The subject line becomes the task title in Sendtask so you should make it something actionable.
Step 3) Enter any comments in the email field (optional)
If the task has extra information attached to it, simply type it in as a comment in the email field. This will come up in the details box on Sendtask. Then simply send your email and the task will appear in your dashboard.
You can also forward actionable info to someone else – even if they’re not on Sendtask.
You can manage your own tasks and also assign tasks to anyone else as long as you have their email address. Simply add their email address in the recipient field along with [due_date]@sendtask.io. This will create a virtual workspace for you and the assignee even if they don’t have an account. You will be able to track the tasks you’ve assigned to yourself and others in the same dashboard.
In short, Sendtask gives you the opportunity to capture all actionable info and track progress in one place. You can use email, mobile, and the web app to create and manage tasks, with a Slack integration also coming soon.
Ready to try it out? Jump back into Sendtask.
