Comments on: How to improve your email productivity

By: Developing With Style » Archive » Improve your email productivity

Developing With Style » Archive » Improve your email productivity — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 15:17:12 +0000

[...] Ryan Carson just posted a small tip on his blog about how he improved his email productivity using TextExpander for the Mac. [...]

By: XING-Tipp-Vortrag auf dem WordCamp - flying sparks

XING-Tipp-Vortrag auf dem WordCamp - flying sparks — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 23:24:32 +0000

[...] Wer noch schneller wissen möchte, worum es geht, dem empfehle ich Ryan Carsons Video — er ist ähnlich überzeugt von dieser Art zu arbeiten: [...]

By: Ryan Carson

Ryan Carson — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 03:35:53 +0000

Todd – thanks for stopping by. I’m a huge fan of SlideShowPro :)

By: Todd Dominey

Todd Dominey — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 03:19:44 +0000

I’ve been using TextExpander (and TextPander before that) for the last couple of years for all my SlideShowPro support. I have about 30 snippets, or conversational fragments, that can be quickly mixed together to form a complete thought. It took a while, and a lot of trial and error, to get the collection just where I needed it. But now that it’s built I can quickly reply to support emails without sounding impersonal, or typing the same thing over and over and over. Worth every penny.

By: Riccardo Ettore

Riccardo Ettore — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 08:22:48 +0000

PS you may want to watch the demo video, too:
http://ettoresoftware.com/download/TypeIt4Me3demo. mp4

By: Riccardo Ettore

Riccardo Ettore — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 07:56:00 +0000

b4 u shell out 30 bucks on TextExpander, have a look at the original text expander for Mac OS, first released in 1989 and still going strong 18 years on!
download a free 30-day trial copy here:
http://www.typeit4me.com
It’s $27 normally and only $14 for students/teachers.

For Windows, check out activewords.com

By: Mathias

Mathias — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 13:15:38 +0000

Found this one for Win: Yadabyte Subtext.
http://www.yadabyte.com/Yadabyte_Portables.php

Free, doesn’t need an install, portable. Trying it out now myself. :)

By: Andy

Andy — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 17:39:37 +0000

Thanks for the tip and thanks Matt for those links to windows versions. I’ll check those out.

Andy

By: cristian

cristian — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 20:28:02 +0000

What I had in mind for an update on Amigo was about your trademark, I remeber it was rejected, also some number like accounts created, your marketing strategy things like that.
thank

cristian

By: Ryan

Ryan — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 04:30:36 +0000

Ryan, The problem with these text replacement solutions is that you have to know your shortcut or have to type a similar response for it to replace, and if it replaces it with something you don’t want you have to delete it which takes more time than typing the response.

I’m surprised no one here has mentioned this service yet, but I recommend Sproutit Mailroom: http://www.sproutit.com/mailroom

Mailroom suggests customizable replies to all your incoming email. The more you use it, the smarter the suggestions become. Just hit reply and it knows the proper response. It also automatically assigns emails to the right people, based on your past actions.

Mailroomâ€™s provides the history of your conversation with that person. It knows how many times they talked with you, furnishes you a photo of your correspondent, and links to your Basecamp projects that involve that user. It even links emails into a conversation like Google so emails are not isolated threads.

Its’ drop dead simple, nearly automates your replies and with the newly released version is lightning fast. See the preview here: http://www.sproutit.com/articles/bigact/2417

By: Darren Nicholls

Darren Nicholls — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 15:57:43 +0000

Thanks Matt, ShortKeys looks good. I’m migrating away from Office and I also found something similar for Thunderbird.

By: Ryan Carson

Ryan Carson — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 08:43:20 +0000

It would be nice to have an update on Amigo.

Hey Christian – what did you have in mind?

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 01:58:22 +0000

There are a few windows versions that I have been able to find:

Free:
===============================
ShortKeys – Lite
http://www.shortkeys.com/

Not Free:
===============================
ShortKeys ($19.95)
http://www.shortkeys.com/

SureType ($24.97)
http://www.suretype.com/

FastFox ($39)
http://www.nch.com.au/fastfox/index.html

If someone knows of any others (free) for Windows PLEASE post them here.

By: mimo

mimo — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 22:16:33 +0000

http://www.app4mac.com/rapidowrite.html

Does the same for free.

By: Anita

Anita — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 18:05:56 +0000

Wow, that’s great! I’ll have to give that to my team. Funny, I just randomly stumbled here from MyBlogLog and found something useful immediately!

By: Darren Nicholls

Darren Nicholls — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 15:56:28 +0000

Very, very useful, but what about us unfortunate Windows users? :(

note: think I could save a load of time by ditching my annoying PC and switching back to Mac!

By: Ryan Carson

Ryan Carson — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 15:14:39 +0000

I appreciate the tip, but itâ€™s awfully old news.

Just because it’s old doesn’t mean it isn’t helpful :)

By: supercrisp

supercrisp — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 15:11:18 +0000

I appreciate the tip, but it’s awfully old news. I’ve been using this trick since Thunder7 in the late 80s. And why the need to use the video bandwidth for a tip that could simply be “hey, if you type something a lot, it’s a good idea to assign a macro to it!” I mean, reinventing the wheel and then making a film about it is kinda dopey.

By: Martin Baker

Martin Baker — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 13:36:00 +0000

Bit easier to create and yes the screens would be clearer BUT watching this it really struck me how powerful a non-screencast testimonial can be. Seeing a face and expressions on the video makes a big difference I think. Of course you could do a iShowU/SnapzPro recording at the same time and then edit them together but that’s even more work.

I heard about TextExpander a while back but never tried it. Your video made me download it and I’m hooked already.

By: Ryan Carson

Ryan Carson — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 11:29:31 +0000

BTW, why not just do a screencast w/ SnapzPro or something similar? A bit easier no?

Good point – might do that next time :)

By: Ryan

Ryan — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 03:27:43 +0000

I’ve wasted days of my life, one email at a time, by not downloading this the first time I read about it, last year.

BTW, why not just do a screencast w/ SnapzPro or something similar? A bit easier no?

By: Dave Greiner

Dave Greiner — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 02:58:05 +0000

That’s great tool Ryan, thanks for the video review too, nice little spin on the standard review.

Daniel, if you’re doing a decent volume of support emails, I definitely recommend a dedicated help desk tool. We currently use Helpspot (and love it), and could never go back to regular email.

http://www.userscape.com/products/helpspot/

This sort of app is especially useful if more than one person is handling support, which is the case for Freshview.

By: Ryan Carson

Ryan Carson — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 01:54:35 +0000

Thanks for the tip Luigi!

By: Daniel Tsang

Daniel Tsang — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 20:33:34 +0000

Hi Ryan,

Thanks for the useful post. I handle most of the support emails here at FreshBooks, so that tool will definitely come in handy. I typically reply with personal responses, but I can see how it would be useful when explaining procedures step-by-step.

Now, to find a windowâ€™s equivalentâ€¦

Thanks,

-Daniel

By: Luigi Montanez

Luigi Montanez — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 19:24:58 +0000

For Thunderbird users, the extension you want to get is called Quicktext.

http://extensions.hesslow.se/extension/4/Quicktext/

It has both keyword and menu-bar functionality for inserting snippets.