An app store for good email behaviour
You shouldn't need to have to read books or go on an email training course in order to become an email master.
We decided that we would read the books and take the courses. We distilled all of the important learnings into features that you can switch on and off from our Skills Center.
Want to reach inbox zero? Flick a switch and we help you get there.
Want to check your email less frequently. Flick a switch and you'll check on average 60% less than you used to.
Want to make sure that you never forget about those really important mails? Flick... you get the idea :)
Dashboard
The most destructive email habit of all? Checking your mail too frequently. On average, we check our email 96 times a day, or every 5 minutes. This is completely unnecessary. Nobody expects you to check your email this often (and if they do, they’re nuts).
Checking email less can result in significant time savings. Every time you check your mail, it costs you at least one minute (some studies say 20 minutes depending on your role). That’s because when you are interrupted, it’s not just the time it takes to read the email. It’s the time it takes you to get back up to speed on what you were doing before you were interrupted.
Task List
Ever forget to deal with an important email? Yup. By capturing those emails in the task list, you can rest assured you’re not going to forget something important. Or have to keep scrolling through your email list to remind yourself what you need to do.
The Task list has some cool features. For example, you can open the email associated with the task directly from the task list. And vice-versa - you can open any tasks associated with an email from any email.
Action / FYI
Short version: Triaging your emails helps you separate the wheat from the chaff. An organised Inbox leads to a healthier mind.
Splitting your emails as they arrive into things you need to do and things you just need to know about is a great way to triage your inbox. When you triage your inbox effectively, you begin to realise that there’s not nearly as much stuff that you actually need to do as you thought. In fact, only about 20% of the email you receive on average, actually contains a task for you.
Zero Inbox
Inbox Zero is a rigorous approach to email management aimed at keeping the inbox empty - or almost empty - at all times.
Inbox Zero was developed by productivity expert Merlin Mann. According to Mann, the zero is not a reference to the number of messages in an inbox; it is "the amount of time an employee's brain is in his inbox." Mann's point is that time and attention are finite and when an inbox is confused with a "to do" list, productivity suffers. By clearing out your inbox, you will spend less time looking through your email. A clean inbox leads to a healthy, productive mind - or so the theory goes.
“Hiri is packed with time-saving tools that'll improve email habits”
"If I were running a company, I'd definitely give Hiri a whirl"
“My favourite feature of Hiri is the way it asks you to explicitly separate emails you send into two groups. Ones that are just an FYI, and ones that require further action. It’s a very simple idea but one that I think could be incredibly effective.“
“Hiri is a pleasure to use thanks to a slick, professional interface that puts all the essentials at your fingertips”
Subject Lines
You’ll write a better subject line once you’ve written the body of the email. This is important. Better use of the subject line makes it significantly easier for someone to assess the importance of an email. If the subject of your email is relevant to the body of the email, it also makes the whole email easier to digest.
For the same reasons, you’ll also notice that Hiri won’t allow you to send an email without a subject line.
Snooze
Sometime you can’t deal with an email immediately, but it needs to be actioned on or before a specific date. Hitting the Reminder button let’s you choose when you’d like to get a reminder about a specific email thread. Simple as that!
Adds a Reminder button to the Email Action Bar. This allows you to set reminders for specific conversations.
Delegate
The Delegate button acts very much like a Forward button, with a few simple differences. When you use the Delegate button, A Task field is added to the beginning of the forwarded email so you can let users know exactly what you’d like them to do with the email. This is important, because 40% of emails users receive contain no clear action, which leads to additional clarification emails.
It’s a small change, but it’s just one more way Hiri helps improve your communication. There’s one more ‘bonus’ to using the Delegate button. If you are sending a Delegated mail to another Hiri user, the mail will automatically be directed to their Actionable Inbox, as we know it contains an action for them.
Rate My Mail
The best way to improve your communication skills is honest feedback, and what better place to ask then an email?
Allows others to rate your emails using the four pillars of good communication - clarity, brevity, tone and behaviour. Hiri will give you a score based on feedback from your peers and recommendations on what you can do to improve your communication skills. This score is not shared with anyone else. Ratings are anonymised - you won’t know who rated you.
