In Tim Ferris’ bestseller book, “A 4-Hour Work Week”, he points out that the worst time-waster that bogs down our productivity is the e-mail. It has ingrained itself so deeply into our everyday lives that many have developed the anxiety syndrome of missing every piece of news that may have been sent in our e-mails. Thus, it has become a habit to check our e-mails every hour (or more often). This has caused unnecessary distractions and disrupts us from attending to our more important duties.
Tim offers a solution to this problem with his “diet-information e-mail” whereby we schedule and limit our access to the e-mail to twice, or less, times a day.
Fortunately, there is now available the software application that helps us do this effectively —the XOBNI (inbox spelled backwards; pronounced /ˈzɒbni/ ZOB-nee). It is a free program that boasts of “putting Outlook on steroids”.Fortunately, there is now available the software application that helps us do this effectively —the XOBNI (inbox spelled backwards; pronounced /ˈzɒbni/ ZOB-nee). It is a free program that boasts of “putting Outlook on steroids”.
Xobni offers many features but the most relevant one to our purpose of limiting our e-mails is its ability of identifying the periods or “hotspots”. These are the times of the day when the bulk e-mails from your most important contacts are received. This system effectively reduces the checking of emails to 3 times or even to once a day by batching time for your critical contacts.
Xobni also automatically fills up your contact list from a separate e-mail slot in your inbox which can be opened later at your discretion or spare time without distracting you from your important tasks.
Some other notable features that Xobni adds to Outlook are:
- It enables faster and more intuitive email search. It gives results the second you start typing your search, and presents it in a very useful manner
- It enables viewing of email in threaded conversations by organizing related file attachments.
- It easily and immediately looks up specific email attachments by extracting and making visible useful information like phone numbers related contacts.
- It serves as an automatic address book. It creates profiles for anyone you have ever emailed, called or SMS’d which includes their signature info.
- It integrates with other popular websites and services like LinkedIn, Facebook, Yahoo! Mail, Skype and Hoovers.
- It offers convenient way to list contacts. Since it is easier to remember than subjects, Xobni lists the 1 e-mail. st and last name or the company, file links, and other details needed to compose an
- A scheduling assistant that allows you to schedule appointments with a click of a button whereby Xobni automatically finds open slots in your busy schedule.
Xobni does this by classifying all the data stored in your Outlook folders and functions as an effective search tool for viewing data like e-mails, attachments, and contacts which may have accumulated in years.
Bill Gates demos Xobni, the new plugin for Microsoft Outlook
In short, Xobni organizes, prioritize, and simplifies practically everything for you to be an effective tool to boost your business growth.
NOTE: To those interested, Xobni for Outlook is free and can be downloaded on the web at www.xobni.com.