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What email client features can I remove to make email more usable?

I've been consciously working on my email workflow optimisation since seeing a great lecture by Merlin Mann about inbox zero. However, after trying many email clients over past few years, I realised none of them fully captures the concepts in the talk. All of them seemed to add more unnecessary features that broke the workflow instead of optimizing it. I decided to experiment with building an opinionated email client, by removing traditional features, that helps you to focus your attention on a single email.

Plain Email stays true to GTD® methodology with only four distinct actions available: done, respond, delegate, and defer. There is no skipping or snoozing. If the email requires more time, you have to book it into your calendar. All the actions are accessible with keyboard – it is all about the flow!

By dogfooding a prototype of this client for few weeks, I realised that dealing with emails as if they were on a conveyor belt with keyboard actions is extremely efficient. A prototype with done, delegate, and respond actions that works with Gmail can be downloaded below for you to play with. I would love to keep testing, but I am on inbox zero now!

Please let me know if you have any feedback or just say hi at andrej@plainemail.com. Stay up to date with Plain Email newsletter.