16
53 Comments

Ask IH: How often do you email yourself and why?

Just wondering because I'm working on something to help organize what you send yourself as I do this all the time! 😋

If you answer any of these below you've made my day!
What kinds of emails are these (why do you do it)? How much of your inbox is you to yourself?

Do you do it to remind yourself about things?

Do you want to save an article for later?

Have you tried to organize them before? What methods do you use?

Have you used another tool to help organize and if so why haven't you given it up or why did you give it up?

Cheers!

  1. 3

    I do email myself continuosly. I have tried different toos but still, I email myself. Now I sometimes slack myself as well.

    It's usually about: 1 - work related articles, and posts that I do not need to read immediately.
    2- Liks of things I want to buy/reserve online.

    1. 1

      Hey @riccardobarana,
      Thanks for that info, it would mean the world to me if I could make your life easier! If you could throw your email into the waitlist (https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/hitsnag) and follow it here on indiehackers (https://www.indiehackers.com/product/hitsnag) for updates you'd make my whole week! If you have a product you'd like me to follow, I'd do the same in exchange!

  2. 3

    Multiple times every day:

    • quickly send screenshots from my phone
    • things I will have to read some day (but hardly ever do)
    1. 1

      Hey @janvdp! 👋
      Thanks for that info, it would mean the world to me if I could make your life easier! If you could throw your email into the waitlist (https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/hitsnag) and follow it here on indiehackers (https://www.indiehackers.com/product/hitsnag) for updates you'd make my whole week! If you have a product you'd like me to follow, I'd do the same in exchange!

    1. 1

      Mega thanks! 💖

  3. 2

    I do it with whatsapp. (Don't know if that helps) Make a single person group. (Add a person and than remove them => Minor trouble)

    Frequency - 5 to 7 x day

    Organized into

    Thoughts
    Ideas
    Do

    Then, there are temp groups that come and go. Such as

    Gmat SC
    Gmat CR
    Project XY

    Some problems/ nuisances

    These groups go down as I get messages. But they are too many anyways.....

    Probable improvements

    Add replies to the messages. (Maybe) Also, then the message (which I have replied) comes down.

    1. 1

      Hey @newnewnew,
      Thanks for that info, it would mean the world to me if I could make your life easier! If you could throw your email into the waitlist (https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/hitsnag) and follow it here on indiehackers (https://www.indiehackers.com/product/hitsnag) for updates you'd make my whole week! If you have a product you'd like me to follow, I'd do the same in exchange! Hitsnag will organize those thoughts, ideas, and todos without having to message yourself on whatsapp by putting them where you need them to be!

  4. 2

    Love this. @adawg4 - would love to learn more about what you're working on.

    I definitely email myself, but have it somewhat organized.

    I have a "Stuff/Tasks" email that I email myself so it stays at the top of my email box. Every couple of days I copy the contents, create a new email, add/remove items as needed, and send it to myself with the same subject. I find this keeps my most important todos top of mind better than a todo app/function. Plus, I don't have to use a separate app.

    I have an "Ideas" email where I do something similar to the above.

    I sometimes email myself when sharing content between my mobile and desktop. For example a URL, or text from a page, text I want to use elsewhere, etc.

    I use dropbox to share files between mobile/desktop, and if I'm keeping ongoing lists of something, I also use a text file on dropbox that I can access from everywhere.

    I do email myself from time to time to remind myself to either add something to my calendar, add something to my task list email, or to remind myself of something I have to add somewhere else.

    I currently use Yahoo email and they don't have a native calendar sync within their app. Otherwise, I'd add my calendar items to my phone, and have it auto-sync to my Yahoo calendar.

    Google has a Share pages & phone calls between devices function that I use from time to time, and it's rather helpful.

    More info about that here:
    https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/9430554

    Bottom line is that email is my primary app, and I don't want to use different apps for different things if I can avoid it. So, I use email for stuff whenever I can.

    1. 1

      Definitely will let you know when I begin throwing more time on it in November! I should probably get an email list going tbh...

      1. 1

        Perfect! You can add [email protected] to your list right now :)

        1. 1

          Hey @iammike,
          Thanks for that info, it would mean the world to me if I could make your life easier! If you could throw your email into the waitlist (https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/hitsnag) and follow it here on indiehackers (https://www.indiehackers.com/product/hitsnag) for updates you'd make my whole week! If you have a product you'd like me to follow, I'd do the same in exchange!😃

  5. 2

    Constantly, I use Noto on iOS to quickly send reminders to myself, I then snooze them until done with Spark which works for me.

  6. 2

    Yesterday i emailed myself the shopping list!
    Now i have all the foods i need in my fridge!

    1. 1

      Hey @eneaslari
      Thanks for that info, it would mean the world to me if I could make your life easier! If you could throw your email into the waitlist (https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/hitsnag) and follow it here on indiehackers (https://www.indiehackers.com/product/hitsnag) for updates you'd make my whole week! If you have a product you'd like me to follow, I'd do the same in exchange! Glad to hear you got the right food my guy!

      1. 1

        Done :)

        Don't have anything for you to follow atm, but maybe sometime in 2021.

  7. 2

    I do it regularly, pretty much daily. It's mostly ideas or idea addons to existing projects or future projects. I use gmail and I tag all of my mails. Tags I use are 'ideas', 'todo', 'learning', '[project name]', .... just to name a few of them.

    Tried evernote but I don't want to pay for it and search function sucks. Tried google notes but had the problem with syncing. I don't always wan to sync browsers (e.g. I used to sync my chrome browser I use private and in office, but that wasn't a good idea, so undid it).

    I find emailying me the fastest and with gmails tags also the fastest to find and have a good overview. I pretty happy with it.

    1. 1

      Hey @Wondarar,
      Thanks for that info, it would mean the world to me if I could make your life easier! If you could throw your email into the waitlist (https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/hitsnag) and follow it here on indiehackers (https://www.indiehackers.com/product/hitsnag) for updates you'd make my whole week! If you have a product you'd like me to follow, I'd do the same in exchange! If your comfortable with emailing yourself the way you are, feel free to not sign up lol.

  8. 2

    i sometimes email myself To dos...(although at the moment using trello so not so much). i do email myself screenshots quite a bit- like i'm booking some flights and wanted to capture a screenshot of the cancellation policy- unlikely will ever need it, but just in case. And when i submit something and want a reference of it but it is not going to send a copy to my inbox. Also, email myself pics from my phone that i need to print out....

    1. 1

      Hey @Philippa,
      Thanks for that info, it would mean the world to me if I could make your life easier! If you could throw your email into the waitlist (https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/hitsnag) and follow it here on indiehackers (https://www.indiehackers.com/product/hitsnag) for updates you'd make my whole week! If you have a product you'd like me to follow, I'd do the same in exchange! Hitsnag will eventually let you sync up trello in a much easier way and also will let you throw those screenshots in a folder in drive automatically!

  9. 2

    I tend to iMessage or Slack myself more than email. I usually text myself articles and use Slack for notes and information I need to reference often at work. For organizing my thoughts I just use Apple's Notes app.

    1. 1

      Hey @keeg,
      Thanks for that info, it would mean the world to me if I could make your life easier! If you could throw your email into the waitlist (https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/hitsnag) and follow it here on indiehackers (https://www.indiehackers.com/product/hitsnag) for updates you'd make my whole week! If you have a product you'd like me to follow, I'd do the same in exchange! I hope it might be of some use to you even though you message yourself more!

      1. 1

        Sure thing man happy to help. Just a follow on IH would be nice :)

  10. 2

    Even though plenty of tools available, I mostly prefer to use notebook and pen for noting down today's activity. I use Google Keep for the things to remember in near future.

    1. 1

      Hey @gowtham_nagarajan,
      Thanks for that info, it would mean the world to me if I could make your life easier! If you could throw your email into the waitlist (https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/hitsnag) and follow it here on indiehackers (https://www.indiehackers.com/product/hitsnag) for updates you'd make my whole week! If you have a product you'd like me to follow, I'd do the same in exchange! Hitsnag will help you connect to your notes apps like keep if you are on the go and cant bother opening it up!

  11. 2

    It's nice to know I'm not alone on this. I email myself reguarly even though I know I could use a todo list and do use todo lists. I also use mark as unread to remeber to come back to things.

    Of course it's not ideal, but it illustrates that 1, app fatigue is real. 2, immediate is sometimes better.

    1. 1

      Hey @Andyjamesnelson,
      Thanks for that info, it would mean the world to me if I could make your life easier! If you could throw your email into the waitlist (https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/hitsnag) and follow it here on indiehackers (https://www.indiehackers.com/product/hitsnag) for updates you'd make my whole week! Hitsnag solves app fatigue and lets you do much easier shortcuts so you can be as lazy as you want! 😎

  12. 2

    Here is another gem. I follow Ryan, who replied so I saw it.

    Replies to each tweet can be gold too. 🥳 Looks like you are going to have some good feedback to work with!

    Interested to hear what you determine!

    1. 1

      Hey @goodpointdustin,
      Once again thanks for that info, it would mean the world to me if I could make your life easier! If you could throw your email into the waitlist (https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/hitsnag) and follow it here on indiehackers (https://www.indiehackers.com/product/hitsnag) for updates you'd make my whole week! If you have a product you'd like me to follow, I'd do the same in exchange! 🙌

  13. 2

    Saw a tweet about this from Nir Eyal, the author of Hooked.

    There is actually a TON of tweets on this topic. Just search “email myself.” You could tweet each person and chat with them in-depth. Then ask them if they want to be beta testers. 😎😎😎

    1. 1

      Nice, big thanks for this!

  14. 2

    I do it to remind myself to something lol

    1. 1

      Hey @yunsn,
      Thanks for that info, it would mean the world to me if I could make your life easier! If you could throw your email into the waitlist (https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/hitsnag) and follow it here on indiehackers (https://www.indiehackers.com/product/hitsnag) for updates you'd make my whole week! If you have a product you'd like me to follow, I'd do the same in exchange! You can now use your email to send reminders directly to your reminder app of choice my guy.

  15. 2

    Less now that I've started using Notion. I used to use my unread messages as TODOs. You can create tags/folders in gmail and archive an unread message to get something out of your inbox but still leave it as a TODO in one of those other folders. My main folders were things to read later, business ideas (either things to build or things to research), and tutorials or classes I want to spend time completing.

    I still use my email for this sometimes if I see something on mobile--I'll send it to myself to file away in Notion later.

    1. 1

      Hey @SimianLogic,
      Thanks for that info, it would mean the world to me if I could make your life easier! If you could throw your email into the waitlist (https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/hitsnag) and follow it here on indiehackers (https://www.indiehackers.com/product/hitsnag) for updates you'd make my whole week! If you have a product you'd like me to follow, I'd do the same in exchange! Luckily Hitsnag will eventually connect to apps like Notion and let you not have to deal with that 'transferring' to Notion bit later on after emailing yourself!

      1. 1

        Not really something I want to get emailed on (I've mostly unsubbed from Product Hunt's 1000 variously named channels), but happy to drop a follow here and updoot something when you post it.

  16. 2

    I email myself a few times a week, and it's almost always an email with no subject line or content, and it just contains attachments (images, PDFs, Excel files, .txt files) I need somewhere else later.

    1. 1

      Hey @apple,
      Thanks for that info, it would mean the world to me if I could make your life easier! If you could throw your email into the waitlist (https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/hitsnag) and follow it here on indiehackers (https://www.indiehackers.com/product/hitsnag) for updates you'd make my whole week! If you have a product you'd like me to follow, I'd do the same in exchange! You can put these files into folders automatically with Drive using Hitsnag!

  17. 2

    I tend to use a handful of different "todo" type lists.
    Teamwork for work related items, I've got an Evernote notes for a handful of other things.

    If there is an article I see or just need to be reminded of something I'll email it to myself or slack the link to myself. Primarily because I have too many ways to track information and it's super quick way to just kick the can down the road and get back to it later.

    1. 1

      Hey @ryandoom,
      Thanks for that info, it would mean the world to me if I could make your life easier! If you could throw your email into the waitlist (https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/hitsnag) and follow it here on indiehackers (https://www.indiehackers.com/product/hitsnag) for updates you'd make my whole week! If you have a product you'd like me to follow, I'd do the same in exchange! Hitsnag will work with Evernote/docs to help you keep track and also you can always remind yourself with it to read the link later!

  18. 2

    I email myself all the time, but in my case it's not about organizing.. it's about searching.

    If I want to order a pizza, I search for "pizza" on my e-mail to find all pizza places I like with a menu photo attached.

    Same for contractors, I want to keep list of contacts on my phone restricted to work contacts, family and friends. So I e-mail myself contractor info used by me or recommended by others and when I search for "plumber" I'll find them.

    Yeah I k now there are lots of note taking apps and I use Evernote but most of them are very bad for searching things, so I prefer to trust on gmail/google searching abilities.

    1. 1

      Hey @mauricio,
      Thanks for that info, it would mean the world to me if I could make your life easier! If you could throw your email into the waitlist (https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/hitsnag) and follow it here on indiehackers (https://www.indiehackers.com/product/hitsnag) for updates you'd make my whole week! If you have a product you'd like me to follow, I'd do the same in exchange! You can sort all that media into one folder on drive with Hitsnag!

  19. 2

    I only email myself to send me photos or screen shots taking by a mobile deivce. I found it faster than uploading to drive for instance, especially when I only need that screenshot once.

  20. 2

    I email or slack myself all the time. As someone managing a mobile app team, I'm taking screenshots constantly. Then I email them to myself, and then I can copy and paste them into a Jira ticket.

    I do feel like there should be an easy way. But not sure how it's exactly possible.

    1. 1

      Hey @shanefromfargo,
      Thanks for that info, Im how it makes it possible! If you could throw your email into the waitlist (https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/hitsnag) and follow it here on indiehackers (https://www.indiehackers.com/product/hitsnag) for updates you'd make my whole week! If you have a product you'd like me to follow, I'd do the same in exchange! Hitsnag will eventually let you send that from an emailed screenshot directly into a Jira ticket!

      1. 2

        Done. You can can just follow me here on IH 😁

  21. 2

    I never email me stuff as I use different tools for reminders, saved links, and other things others email themselves. To answer your questions:

    Do you do it to remind yourself about things?

    I don't do it.

    Do you want to save an article for later?

    I don't do it.

    Have you tried to organize them before? What methods do you use?

    For reminders I use Google Tasks or Google Calendar. I save links and notes to Google Keep.

    Have you used another tool to help organize and if so why haven't you given it up or why did you give it up?

    See above.

  22. 1

    What kinds of emails are these (why do you do it)? How much of your inbox is you to yourself?

    Reminders, To Dos, things that are longer than 5 words as otherwise I'd stick that in my To Do List app (Ticktick)

    40% of inbox are these self emails

    Do you do it to remind yourself about things?

    Yes, either to do something, read something, or just a reminder. Sometimes just a motivational pep talk for my future self

    Do you want to save an article for later?

    Yeh sometimes

    Have you tried to organize them before? What methods do you use?

    I have a 0 inbox policy so organisition isn't too big of an issue, the emails are shortlived

    Have you used another tool to help organize and if so why haven't you given it up or why did you give it up?

    As I treat my inbox as a To Do, I've not needed another tool

    1. 2

      Hey @pagey,
      Thanks for that info, it would mean the world to me if I could make your life easier! If you could throw your email into the waitlist (https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/hitsnag) and follow it here on indiehackers (https://www.indiehackers.com/product/hitsnag) for updates you'd make my whole week! If you have a product you'd like me to follow, I'd do the same in exchange! I hope this will make your inbox a bit less tedious with that mix of todos and other stuff in it lol.

Trending on Indie Hackers
How I grew a side project to 100k Unique Visitors in 7 days with 0 audience 48 comments Competing with Product Hunt: a month later 33 comments Why do you hate marketing? 28 comments $15k revenues in <4 months as a solopreneur 14 comments My Top 20 Free Tools That I Use Everyday as an Indie Hacker 13 comments Use Your Product 13 comments