5 steps to master your shared inbox
Finally take control of your inbox with Email for Trello! We take a look at five quick ways to apply inbox zero to your shared email address.
Take control of your inbox
Attending to email can feel like an insurmountable task. Incoming messages quickly pile up, adding to an already growing list of to-dos. But by bringing your inbox into Trello, right alongside your usual tasks, email can be easy to deal with. Instead of putting it off or treating it separately, email becomes just another piece of work to process and get off your desk. Hopefully as quickly as possible!
This is the core idea of Merlin Mann’s ‘Inbox Zero’ – to figure out which actions you can apply to email and then… just do it! His framework is based on a simple list: delete, delegate, respond, defer or do.
Although the inbox zero policy usually applies to your personal inbox, everything still holds for a shared work inbox. Plus, if you’re using the Email for Trello Power-Up to collaborate on email, your messages are already right there in Trello, ready for you to work through. So, enough procrastinating, let’s master those inboxes!
1. Delete
This is pretty obvious – if it’s not useful or doesn’t need your attention, just get rid of it! All you need to do is hit ‘C’ to archive the card. We’re not just talking about spam! If you get an email that’s just an FYI, read it, then hit ‘C’ to clear it away and free up your headspace for something else.
2. Delegate
If you can’t attend to it, make sure someone else does! With Email for Trello, incoming emails arrive as new cards on your board, so you can easily rope colleagues in to help out. Here are a few useful ways to delegate in Trello:
Assign a team member
Simply add a team member to the card to hand over the work. Sometimes it’s not that easy to decide who should be assigned to a task, especially when it’s not particularly exciting! If there’s a risk of seeming unfair, you can use Trello automation to assign incoming cards to your team, round-robin style.
Send it to another Trello board
If a whole different team needs to take a look at it, send the card on to the relevant department so that it can be actioned elsewhere. To make it even easier, learn this neat trick to link multiple Trello boards, so all you need to do is drag and drop the card to move it to another board.
TIP To get a clear picture of who’s busy with what, check out the Swimlanes Power-Up. Organize your board by team member or by Custom Field to better visualize your work and capacity.
3. Respond
To avoid an email avalanche, the key to inbox zero is that if it takes you just two minutes to do – respond right away! Luckily, Email for Trello makes this super easy. Here are two features to help you respond efficiently:
Saved Replies
If you deal with similar enquiries or repetitive emails, save yourself the trouble of typing out an individual reply each time! Set up a Saved Reply template to help you respond quickly and easily, as well as standardizing communication across your team. Plus, you can include variables and Custom Fields in your templates to keep your emails personalized.
Trello automation
Set up a few Trello rules to automatically send out templated emails based on triggers. Instant responses mean fewer emails to deal with – and more time for meaningful work! Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Drag a card to send an email. When you move a Trello card from one list to another, automation can fire off an email on your behalf.
Create a button for common queries so that you can reply to emails in just one click.
Automatically send a follow-up email after a certain number of hours has elapsed.
Reply on the go
Keep up with email on the Trello mobile app! To reply to emails on the go, simply type your response as a comment, starting with the keyword “@reply”.
4. Defer
If you’re not going to deal with an email right away, make sure it doesn’t get lost or buried under other to-dos. The simplest way to remind yourself to get around to it is to set a due date on the card so that you get another nudge. Use automation to help you!
For example, when you move a card from one list to another, you can automatically set the due date for a certain number of days’ time. Check out our beginner’s guide to Trello automation rules for more date-based automations and Due Date Commands.
TIP Clear the clutter with Card Snooze! This is a great Power-Up to use together with Email for Trello. If you aren’t going to respond immediately, snooze an email conversation to keep your board tidy.
5. Do
The last part of the inbox zero framework seems the simplest, but actually doing what an email asks of us is sometimes the very reason we put it off in the first place! But with the Email for Trello Power-Up, your inbox is already in Trello – right where the work happens.
Each email moves through a specific set of processes along your Kanban board, making it easy for you and your team to collaborate on what needs to be done. Email conversations can be supplemented with checklists, notes, attachments and internal discussion so that everyone on the team has a clear picture of ongoing work.
Take action on email
Master your shared inbox in five simple steps! By following the core inbox zero framework – delete, delegate, respond, defer or do – you can always take action on email. Even better, Email for Trello makes it easy to deal with email right alongside your usual to-dos in one, centralized workflow.
