I’m notorious for needing reminders to do everyday tasks. The one area of my life I have yet to fully get under control with task reminders though, is my e-mail. FollowUpThen has solved that problem for me. I first discovered it while surfing the internet a few months ago. I was intrigued by the fact that it was not only free, but was also simple to use.
You have to set up and account to use the service, but the process isn’t painful.
Once my account was set up, I put the website to the test. Setting up a reminder is as easy as adding <insert time here>@followupthen.com in the To, CC or BCC box. For example, if you wanted to be reminded to email someone back in twenty minutes, you would forward the email to 20minute@followupthen.com. In return, FollowUpThen will then send you a confirmation that the reminder has been set.
One of the ways I use this service is to remind myself to follow up with my GeekMom correspondence. Since it’s not a rare thing for my email to get bounced into the junk folder of some companies we work with, I add 1week@followupthen.com as a BCC and I get a reminder to follow up with them if I haven’t heard back in a week. By adding 1week@followupthen.com to the BCC, the other person won’t know that I setup the reminder in the first place.
If you want to remind yourself, as well as the other person, you can add the @followupthen.com reminder to the CC and both of you will get the reminder at the same time. If they reply back, you won’t see the FollowUpThen reminder in the body of the email unless they hit reply to all.
When the time for the reminder kicks in, you will get an email from FollowUpThen with the reminder notice as well as the original email you needed the reminder for. If you need a little more time, the email gives you the option to postpone the reminder for a specific amount of time.
In the case that you have a reminder set up for something you have already taken care of, you can cancel it by emailing pending@followupthen.com. In return, you get an email with a list of all your scheduled reminders and the option to cancel them individually.
There’s a wide range of scheduling options from by the minute to the month. You can also set up recurring reminders. My system for recurring tasks is just to schedule them in my Google calendar as an event, but I can see how useful it could be for other people who don’t use their calendars in that way.
It’s also a great tool to help you clean out your inbox and de-stress your email life. Once you set up the reminder, you can delete the original email and get it out of sight, until it’s time to do something with it again. You can also use it to give someone else a task. For example, you could remind your spouse to pick up milk by sending them an email and adding 3hour@followupthen.com to the CC and you will both get a reminder three hours later to get milk.
If you want to get more out of the service, you can pay $4.99 month for the premium subscription. With it you gain access to some neat features, including:
- SMS reminders
- Add attachments to followup emails
- View your followup appointments in your calendar
- Manage your follow ups through the website, instead of emailing pending@followupthen.com
- More design options
I’m a simple person, so when I set up a reminder, I want it out of sight our of mind until I have to do something with it. FollowupThen allows me to do just that.
Note: I received a free premium subscription to Followupthen.com to have access to the service and write the review.
