Email. Sometimes I think we’ve created some kind of monster.
On one hand, we’re able to shoot messages across the world in seconds. Aside from the pure social aspects, we’re able to coordinate and manage entire businesses without even leaving the keyboard.
But then you’ve got the issue of inbox management. Some of us literally have to allot time on our calendars so that we can spend time focused on nothing but email.
There are a lot of strategies out there for dealing with this particular problem, but Taskforce (and it’s Gmail integration) is taking a unique approach.
Essentially, Taskforce is an email-focused application that seeks to make it more managable by splitting all of your emails into one of three categories: Action, Information, and Broadcast.
Emails that are converted into actions become tasks and these tasks can be scheduled in the future. Broadcasting messages brings in the informational aspects of emails, and broadcast emails (regardless of the source) will be converted into an email activity feed.
The utility has Google Apps integration, is mobile ready, and is also open source. You can checkout more and sign up for the beta on the site.
Interesting approach, huh?
I am so signing up. I need this for my life period!
It’s funny how crazy we’ve gotten with email.
At work, I’ve adopted a similar system using Outlook (ugh) where I tread ‘flagged’ items as future tasks. It works alright, but sometimes weeks can go by…
can’t have enough tools with so much to manage.
At this rate, we’re gonna need tools to manage tools.
Sounds cool! I have a pretty good system going with my email checking right now. It’s called… Deal-With-Each-Email-As-I-Get-It. Which usually means either adding it to the task list, starring it, or putting it in a label. Most of which I can do from my phone.
I used to be like that and there are still a few emails I handle on a as-they-arrive basis, but most of them get handled either early in the morning or late at night.