Quick productivity tool for e-mail

[jonobie]

Five months ago, I followed a tip I saw on LifeHacker and created a small signature file to append to all mail messages I sent from work. The template looks like this:

This email is: [] actionable [] fyi [] social
Response needed: [] yes [] up to you [] no
I realized today how much I use it when I automatically looked

Comments

[nickjong]

In the real world (where productivity actually happens), does "actionable" have a widely accepted definition? Perhaps you could define an actionable e-mail to communicate an expectation that the recipient will perform some action above and beyond the communicative act of possibly responding. In this sense, "actionability" and the expectation of an e-mail response are independent. You can tell somebody to do something and trust them both to receive your communication and to do it, and you request a response to an e-mail that is purely informative or social.

[jonobie]

Actionable is a pretty squishy term, I think -- it's mostly used as a shorthand for "go do something", so it's hard to know if I'd be successful in narrowing the definition (though that's obviously a more useful definition). Though, it is the case that marking [FYI] and [YES] should be pretty clear. I'll try it and see if anything changes. :)