Email is a communication tool that is easy to be ignored in our daily life. When it is not involved in business, many people just use it to unilaterally receive account changes, promotion information and other information. The situation of active sending is rare, but in fact, email can help us deal with some lightweight tasks.
As a file transfer station
I have met this scene more than once in school: about to make a speech in class, I found that I forgot to bring the U disk with PPT in my pocket.
Maybe there is a copy of PPT on the mobile phone, but there is neither QQ nor iTunes on the desktop of the school. It is not appropriate for the whole class to wait for downloading in class. Moreover, the hard disk protection system is installed on the computer (it will be restored every time it is turned on).
This problem should not be considered in the relatively complete software ecosystem, even on Android can be solved by a single data cable, has indeed become a problem for many people.
I’ve been smart enough to send an email (or save it to the draft box) to myself when I’m done with the slides, along with the materials I need for the class. In this way, even if you forget to bring a USB flash drive, you can quickly find it on the school computer. It takes no more time than inserting and unplugging the USB flash drive, and there is no “7 days expired” and other restrictions compared with QQ instant messaging software.
Add the project to the task management application
An essential feature of GTD’s “collect” step is timely logging, which allows you to quickly add items to your task system via email when your device does not have a corresponding client. Many big-name apps (OmniFocus, Todoist) support adding tasks by sending them to a mailbox in a specific syntax. Todoist is originally based on the cloud and the web version is not weak. Here, take OmniFocus as an example. It is officially called “Mail Drop”.
Because OF is exclusive to Apple platform, WHEN I used the public computer OF the school temporarily to search for literature, I encountered some content that needed to be extracted into OF, or I wanted to package a group OF unread tabs into a task to be completed, but I didn’t find a very convenient solution.
By email, we can send content to the above “Mail Drop” mailbox in the following format:
- The email subject becomes the new task name
- The body of the message becomes a note (you can send plain text, attachments, simple HTML)
In comparison, the mail function OF Todoist is more perfect than that OF. As long as you subscribe to the advanced version, you can use various mailbox plug-ins developed by the government to manage tasks. The official documentation has been very detailed.
Mail Drop is more important than that. It is more commonly used for automatic forwarding than for the niche use of manually adding a to-do list.
For example, the school sometimes sends important emails such as semester arrangement and course selection notice. At this time, it is appropriate to write intelligent forwarding rules for such important emails. The sender fills in the school email box with the subject of “course selection” and the additional step is to perform forwarding and mark it as read.
This way, every time a school sends an important email notification, it can be automatically captured in the calendar or task management software, keeping all the “to-do” in one place and keeping the details, in line with the inbox principle in GTD, and eliminating the need to mark it as read and file it.
All of the above operations are done by email, but in practice, the user does not feel the existence of email, which helps to stay immersed in study or work.
Save the content to read the App later
“Read later” apps are similar in principle and application scenarios, but email is also used to make up for the inconvenience of changing platforms temporarily. Evernote, Pocket, and Instapaper all support offline reading of various media formats, with Evernote being the most compatible.
Evernote users have a private email address. The format is [User name][email protected]
In the subject line of your email, write down the subject line of your notes that you want to appear in Evernote. In the same heading, add:
- @ + Notebook name
- # + tags (You can add multiple tags, but make sure each tag starts with a #)
For example, the headline: Jianbing Fruit @ Cooking # Cookbook # Vegetarian 2
In addition, there is a service called EmailThis that filters out useless web elements such as ads and sends only the main text and images to your email. You can create a list in your mailbox as a place to read later, and read saved articles when you have free time.
In this way, you can save what you are reading to “read later” anytime, anywhere, regardless of device or client limitations.
Send it to Kindle and convert it
This is a feature that all Kindle users should be aware of. After making sure that you have added the sender’s email to the “Approved Sender email List”, you can attach the document you want to send. If you need to convert the email, enter convert in the subject of the email.
If you’re a geek and have Calibre installed, you can also try the command-line version of Push, as shown in the following example:
For example, I have an email address [email protected] with authorization code 123456, and I want to push an e-book file named 001.mobi to my Kindle email address [email protected] by running the following command:
calibre-smtp -a /path/to/001.mobi -r smtp.163.com --port=465 -e SSL -u [email protected] -p 123456 [email protected] [email protected]Copy the codeMore detailed calibre- SMTP instructions can be found in the Calibre official documentation
Interworking with IFTTT
On mobile platforms, the automation application IFTTT provides more interfaces and playability for mail, sometimes helping us fulfill our needs in a variety of ways. Here are a few examples.
Create reminders
Send the name of the reminder you want to create as the subject of your email to [email protected]. You can also select the list in IFTTT, set the priority and the reminder date (e.g. 7/17/2018 at 6:00pm).
tweet
After the first authorization, you can send an email with the hashtag # Twitter to [email protected] without having to visit Twitter.
The tag here can also be defined, such as #T for the IFTTT server to recognize:
Upload the attachment to the web disk
Similarly, add #gdrive to the subject of your email and send it to [email protected] to upload some important files that need to be saved to Google Drive for easy access.
You can modify parameters such as the target storage location in the web disk in the default Settings:
Note: The above IFTTT triggering actions can be searched in the official gallery.
Simplify the email process
On mobile, Drafts offer the fastest, easiest solution for commonly used email workflows, done on your own, and cheap to learn.
While some users have more simple needs and only need to Email to the same address every day, Mail Me, developed by OnevCat, is “as fast as it can get.” 3
Not only can Mail Me send emails in the normal way, but it also supports widgets and Share menus, which makes it very efficient. The author, who is a heavy user of email organizing, says the app has saved him a lot of time.
Send an email to the computer to carry out the instructions
The Github project monitors and controls PCS by sending commands to configured mailboxes.
The author writes in great detail about the situation:
- Render a video on a lab computer and want to know the progress of the render when you leave (monitor the screen)
- The brothers who live in the upper bunk no longer have to get out of bed to turn off the computer.
- Afraid of kids playing on computers secretly? (Boot reminder)
- You can use it to execute any CMD command
- Through wechat, you can send emails to monitor computers
For details, see Email My PC User Guide
Here’s how:
Send the command label as the Email header to the Email address you configured in Email My PC. For example, if you want to view a screenshot of your desktop, use #screen as the header of your email and leave the body blank. If the command requires parameters, write them in the body. If you want to use the Win + L shortcut, just use #button as the header of the message and Win + L as the body.
SSH was originally used in Windows, using Putty or similar software, and is difficult for people who do not understand computers. This method is not as syntactic as SSH, but it is very easy to use.
How do you deal with redundancy
The slightest mistake can make your email a disaster zone for messy work.
Similarly, we can use automated rules to deal with complex information.
Create a smart mailbox (or “smart folder” in some places) to collect Mail drops, as well as an outbox. You can archive or delete them entirely, depending on your needs.
In addition, regular automatic archiving is also necessary. The following figure shows the Outlook automatic archiving option, which can be set according to the official documents.
conclusion
Email is not necessarily the fastest and most logical solution in the situations mentioned. Of course, it can’t replace the main application, even far less scalable than wechat mini program, but I think it has two advantages:
- No platform constraints;
- Compensating for the cloud nature of some software.
This fits precisely with the concept of “light tasking,” in which email is more like a spare tool box to carry around with you, allowing you to easily handle tasks when you need to.