A Cool Plugin to Make You More Productive in Gmail

Intro­duc­ing Boomerang

Over the years I have tried a num­ber of plu­g­ins in my busi­ness Gmail to make me more pro­duc­tive. I want­ed to intro­duce you to per­haps my favorite plu­g­in that has saved me count­less hours and made me far more effi­cient in my dai­ly work habits. It is called Boomerang for Gmail. It has a num­ber of key fea­tures such as send­ing emails at a lat­er time, help­ing to orga­nize my cal­en­dar of events (Google Cal­en­dar), ​“boomerang­ing” my emails back into my inbox at a lat­er time, and my per­son­al favorite: noti­fy­ing me if I do not receive a reply back about an email I sent after a cer­tain time peri­od. Let me break down a few fea­tures of this one plu­g­in and why using Boomerang is worth it for busi­ness own­ers and sales­peo­ple.

Send­ing An Email At a Lat­er Time

This is not a fea­ture I use a lot, yet it can come in handy. Have you ever received an email and respond­ed tpo quick­ly? Some­times it can make you look too avail­able. So, a ven­dor sends me an email and I reply at light­ning speed. What tends to hap­pen? He/​She will pick up the phone and call me, because they think I’m avail­able! I don’t want that! So some­times I’ll type up my email response and hit the red but­ton (see screen­shot): ​“send lat­er.” I can have this auto­mat­i­cal­ly set­up for 2 hours, 4 hours, next day, next week etc. to send.

Boomerang If No Reply

Most of the emails I send typ­i­cal­ly need a response. It is nice to know whether some­one saw my email or even opened it. Yet for what I do, and I am sure you are sim­i­lar, I am more inter­est­ed if I get a reply to my email. So with Boomerang for Gmail, I click a but­ton if I need a response (See screen­shot). I nor­mal­ly just use the default ​“tomor­row morn­ing if no response” fea­ture. So I send my email, click the but­ton and move on to the next activ­i­ty. This gets the assign­ment off my mind, which is cru­cial. Before I used Boomerang, I had to con­tin­u­al­ly make myself task reminders of when to fol­low up. Now I just rely on my unread inbox to remind me of when I need to take action. The fol­low­ing morn­ing (ear­ly) I will get the email back in my inbox high­light­ed with a tag called Boomerang.

Sched­ul­ing To Read Emails For Later

This is a fea­ture I enjoy a lot because I like to keep my inbox free of clut­ter. We all orga­nize our lives dif­fer­ent­ly when it comes to task man­age­ment. For me, my inbox real­ly has become my main to do list. Now when I have unread mes­sages, I quick­ly scan through them and use the boomerang fea­ture for when I need to respond to an email. So if a cus­tomer emails me some­thing that I know is NOT urgent, I’ll ​“snooze” the email for a lat­er time of the day. I have received emails that can even wait 3 – 4 days or even a week (from ven­dors). In that case, I’ll snooze (aka boomerang) those emails for 4 days lat­er or the fol­low­ing week. Those emails are removed from my inbox until it is time to respond. It keeps my brain less clut­tered and focused on more impor­tant things. It also helps me to not for­get emails!

The Cal­en­dar Fea­ture of Boomerang

This is the part of Boomerang I use the least, yet it is still a handy func­tion. When send­ing an email, I can click a but­ton in my com­posed email and send sev­er­al things to my recip­i­ent regard­ing my google cal­en­dar. I can share my avail­abil­i­ty for that week, sug­gest a few times to meet or ​“start a meet­ing” with them. It saves time hav­ing to go back and forth with your recip­i­ent. There are oth­er fea­tures for Boomerang, but I have men­tioned the ones I use the most in this post.

The Cost for Boomerang

If you are using Gmail’s free account (per­son­al use) Boomerang for Gmail is $4.99. I am guess­ing many of you read­ing this post are using the Google Apps for Work plat­form. In that case, Boomerang is $14.99 a month per user for what they call ​“PRO” ver­sion. I did­n’t even think twice about the cost per month, because it is worth every pen­ny. There is a pre­mi­um ver­sion for around $50, but I have not seen the need for that upgrade at this time.

What If You Just Get Too Many Emails

Boomerang is a great pro­duc­tiv­i­ty tool that you will come to love the more you use it. If you just hap­pen to have too many emails com­ing into your inbox in the first place, you might need anoth­er tool. There is one that hap­pens to be free and is worth sign­ing up for. It is called Unroll​.me. I’ll write more on this in anoth­er post soon.