This New Tool Can Make It Easier to Retain Control of Your Inbox A little organization can go a long way.
By Carly Okyle
Opinions expressed by BIZ Experiences contributors are their own.
We can't all live in the magical land of Inbox Zero, where we've read every email and responded immediately and where unicorns deliver packages of candy upon request, but a new feature from SaneBox might bring us a bit closer.
SaneBox, an email management tool that works in coordination with your existing email interface, now allows users to see a folder containing sent emails that haven't yet received replies. Called SaneNoReplies, the folder holds emails that haven't received responses for up to four weeks, making it easier to determine which missives need a followup. The feature is accessible from any device.
Related: Gmail Rolls Out 'Block' Sender Feature
The small change might be more helpful than you think. Workers in the U.S. spend more than a quarter of their workweek dealing with e-mails, according to a McKinsey study. Despite that large chunk of time, Sanebox reports that only an estimated 6 percent of emails people send get a response. It's not surprising, then, that important messages can get lost in the shuffle and that cutting down on email overload would be a massive boon to productivity.
Boston-based SaneBox, which was founded in 2010, offers plans at $7 a month, or $4.92 a month for annual plans. The service examines your interaction with your email (i.e. - which emails you open, which you respond to, how quickly you respond, how far back your relationship with the sender goes, etc.) and then determines which emails take priority. Everything else is filtered into a folder called SaneLater.
The company says it only looks at the header data and never stores or looks at the body of your emails.
Related: Email: 5 Ways to Stop Wasting Time and Start Increasing Productivity
