There was a Lifehacker post today about Gmail’s ability to tag outgoing emails by rules.  The usage example in the article that was most interesting to me was a rule that searches for a keyword like “Request” in any outgoing email’s subject and tagging it “Waiting for” to mark it as something I’m expecting a reply.  This is useful to many of us who sends out many emails in a day, and it is very hard to keep track of the ones I don’t get a reply back and need to follow up again.

However, using a rule to look for a specific keyword that I have to include in my subject line seems like a round about way to mark an email as expecting a reply.  What if I can’t work the word “Request” into the email subject?  Or my subject contains the word Request, but I’m not waiting for anything back.  In Zenbe we’ve an easier solution.  You can simply tag any outgoing email before you send it.  Zenbe provides a tagging mechanism in our compose window.  That’s where I can add my “ExpectReply” tag to any outgoing emails I am expecting a response.

In additional to it being a good way to organize your outgoing emails, those tags can optionally be sent along with the email.  If the receiver is another Zenbe user, those outgoing tags will be visible for the receiver reading the message as Suggested Tags.  For example, I can tag emails I’m sending to the Zenbe team, UIDesign, Bugs, or Features.

Suggested Tags are potentially a helpful time saving tool because it allows one person to help others tagging their emails.  If a circle of friends or co-workers all tag their relevant outgoing emails, then we share the load of organizing our inboxes.  We all know keeping emails filed correctly with tags is a time consuming task.  If I send out a message about a work project to 10 people, why should those 10 people have to spend more than a second to accept my Suggested Tag.  By taking a little time to tag my outgoing emails, not only am I organizing my own emails, I’m also helping receivers of that email organize it.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 4th, 2008 at 6:59 am and is filed under Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.