Techno Tuesday: Boomerang!

No, I am not introducing some fancy Australian thing. I am introducing the most funkiest add on for GCal ever invented – Boomerang for Google! This is a plugin for Firefox and Google Chrome and I am so in love with it! As one website put it: “Email productivity at its best!”

Basically Boomerang has two really funky features. The first is that it allows you to schedule messages so that you can go home early and your emails go out later, hehehe! (We will talk more about that next week)!

The second is that it literally has a boomerang effect which means, if your message is not opened, or answered or both, the message gets returned to you (boomerang) so that you can address the problem or resend the email. This is an effortless and non-intrusive way to track your email. And one heck of a powerful method to follow up on outstanding issues!

As you can see from below, this message was sent but never read and returned. It turned out that this person no longer works at my company!

Being able to schedule messages to return to my inbox after a certain period of time if no one responds has really made me super-efficient! I don’t forget about an issue or a task simply because no one responded. I no longer need to look red-faced at my boss when I tell him that I did not follow up on the email because I forgot, and, though it was never my fault to begin with, became my fault because I did not follow up. No more dropping the ball!

Also, I don’t need to clog up my inbox with ‘unread” messages that are waiting for action. Boomerang helps manage my emails and I get to carry on with the rest of my work without worrying about forgetting anything.

Boomerang also has a plugin or extension for Google Calendar. This allows you to send a request for a calendar invite attached to the email (so history included) without having to go into GCal. Everything at your fingertips!

To add Boomerang is simple.

You can click on this link and install it. It will ask to access your email. http://www.boomeranggmail.com/download.html

Written for OPSA by Marié Mieny

Marié Mieny is an administrator within the School of IT at Monash South Africa (MSA). She has been at MSA for 13 years of which 7 years have been in the School of IT

Marié has a reputation for revolutionising the mundane tasks she is given by using technology to make her very efficient and effective in her job. As a result her school is one of the top schools at MSA with a reputation of being highly organised and effective.

Marié has two honours degrees – one in Criminology and one in Psychology. She plans on doing her Masters in the near future

To add Boomerang is simple.

Written for OPSA by Marié Mieny

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