Today, I have news to share!

But first...

Mailman is almost a four-year-old company, and if you have been around for any duration on this journey, I am very grateful to you for your support.

Back to the news...

Today is a new chapter for Mailman and let me share what it means for you – our users, our customers, our supporters!

Tiny beginnings

Mailman started with this tweet from Andrew Wilkinson, co-founder of Tiny.

I had been using a little script to achieve precisely this for myself.

When I saw the tweet, I emailed the demo to him.

A few more emails later – 

🥁 BOOM! 🥁

Mailman was born.

Tiny was the perfect cradle for a business like Mailman. A small utility that could run almost autonomously with a lean team (just me!). 

Mailman was just me.

Also, my role within the Tiny family grew – I co-founded Tiny India and Tiny Studio with Andrew, which I absolutely enjoyed.

Then, a few months ago, I realised what it is that I love the most.

And that is – making useful things.

❌ Not investing in them.

❌ Not buying them.

❌ Not advising other people on how to make things.

✅ But… making.

✅ To get down in the trenches and get my hands dirty.

✅ To keep my feet constantly in the dirt, regardless of whether my head is in the clouds.

Making. Making. Making.

To turn a sliver of an idea into something tangible and useful.

The next chapter

After talking to Andrew and Tiny in December 2023, I have moved on from my responsibilities at Tiny India and Tiny Studio.

The move included shutting down many projects and handing others over to someone else at Tiny.

Among all those projects, one was Mailman.

I couldn’t fathom shutting it down.

Mailman has a piece of my soul in it.

Countless early mornings and late nights had gone over the last four years.

And while it is a small business in Tiny's family of massive businesses, it still is a very useful product.

Thousands of users depend on it to keep their inboxes under control.

When I talked to Andrew, he didn’t want to shut it down either. He liked the product and used it himself.

I asked him what if I keep Mailman and ensure it stays alive and grows?

Unbelievable to me, Andrew gifted it to me.

Yes, just gave it to me.

Just like that.

And that marks the next chapter of Mailman and my life.

What does it mean for you?

It means the product you love and use daily will get 10000x more love and attention.

The only change for you is the name of the legal entity you’ll see on your invoices from next month onwards.

[🚨 URGENT ACTION]

There’s one lil thing that needs urgent action on your part.

As Mailman is changing hands, the new legal home for Mailman is in the US, while the previous home was in Canada.

Thus, the billing is moved to a US-based Stripe account. However, the cards you saved within your Mailman accounts cannot be moved across countries.

So, you'll need to add your card details to your Mailman account again, if you don't mind.

I know it sucks! I am sorry. 🙁

You will NOT be charged right now at all. Your billing cycle will remain as is.

Please do so by January 30, 2024 to avoid any interruption to your Mailman account. That's when we will be shutting down our previous Stripe account.

I will make sure to send a bunch of email reminders for you to do so over the next couple of weeks.

Conclusion

Once done with this Stripe migration, I will send another email with the updated roadmap for Mailman – the product – in the first week of February 2024.

There are many things our users have requested in the last few years that I never got to building them.

Now, I will check them off the list – one by one.

I am jumping with joy as I type this news.

I am even more excited by the things I'll get to build in Mailman.

If you have a feature request or any feedback, hit reply and send it to me.

You will hear a lot more from me this year as I return to the groove of making Mailman better.

A cluttered inbox is the number one productivity killer. You get lost in the floods of emails, wasting time and energy you could have invested in your tasks. But this is not it. Here are the three reasons why a cluttered inbox is bad for you and what you should do:

1. Frequent context switch

The Zeigarnik effect states that you’re more likely to remember unfinished and interrupted tasks. It’s why you can’t resist the temptation to check the message when you get an email notification while in the middle of an important task.

Once you check your email, you’ll trap yourself in long minutes of back-and-forth replies and frequent context switching between the messages and your work, decreasing your job efficiency.

And even if you don’t check your email, you will be stressed about the message (“What is it?” “Is it important?”), which will distract you from working. On top of this, it takes close to 30 minutes to refocus each time you get distracted.

2. Increased email-induced anxiety leading to decreased productivity

How will you feel if you enter a room with physical clutter spread all over? I can’t even imagine.

Just like how physical clutter messes up your brain peace, digital clutter does the same. Overrun inboxes, constant notifications, and leaving in uncertainty over your emails will increase anxiety, ultimately decreasing your work concentration and productivity.

Add to this the feeling of guilt over leaving your emails unanswered and not being able to control your inbox, and it’s a recipe for disaster. You don’t want to overload your brain with these feelings while you’re working, do you?

3. Missing important messages

When you have hundreds of emails cluttering your inbox, you’ll likely miss the crucial emails of your colleagues and boss’. Worse, you’ll waste time and energy going through the cluttered inbox and finding the emails worthy of your attention.

Why not save your brain power instead for important tasks? By decluttering your inbox, you’ll control the inbox, and not the other way round. But how to do that?

Here’s Mailman with the magic:

a) Mailman lets you preset Do Not Disturb times. You can choose when you want it to hold back all your emails—so you can work without constant notification distractions, getting more done in less time with improved work efficiency.

b) Use Mailman’s delivery slots feature to receive emails only when you want to. Maybe you want to receive emails twice—one in the morning and one in the afternoon—to focus on your work.

Accordingly, you can set Mailman to manage emails and deliver them at hourly intervals, a set number of times per day, or at specific times.

c) Block unimportant email senders to receive only the necessary emails.

d) The best feature is the VIP feature. You can add important emails to the VIP list to bypass the above filters and receive their messages as soon as they are sent.

So, you now know how Mailman will help you keep yourself (and your inbox) sane, avoid distractions, and 10X your productivity.

Try it today.

Remote work can often blur the lines between work and personal life. You feel like you’re working all day without spending time with yourself and family/friends. And if you aren’t intentional about keeping your work and personal life separate, you’ll only drag yourself into this problem.

So, how to maintain a healthy work-life balance?

Here are the five tips to get started:

1. Follow a routine

While it’s tempting to work anytime you want to while working remotely, you must create a schedule you stick to consistently. Because if you don’t, you won’t feel the separation of work from personal life as you’ll be working throughout the day. It can take a toll on your body.

Start with figuring out your Biological Prime Time(BPT)—when you feel the most productive/energized. If you’re a morning person, do your work around that time. And if you’re at your peak energy levels during the night, schedule your tasks accordingly.

2. Establish a separate working area where you only work

Your brain associates place with activities. For example, if you play in the basement of your house, you’ll feel the urge to play whenever you’re near it.

But if you have a place where you do nothing but work, your brain will automatically switch the work mode on when you’re at this place. You’ll feel motivated to get tasks done without being distracted.

So, if you have the luxury of setting up a home office, do it. Enter the room at your designated working hours and leave it when done. Ensure you only have the necessary job essentials—table, laptop, chair, files, and other work materials—in that room.

But if you don’t have a separate area for a home office, create one. You can choose the kitchen/dining area as your workplace where you store your work-related items. And when you finish your day's work, tuck those away in a separate place so as not to constantly see them.

3. Set strict working/communication hours

Communicate your working hours to your colleagues to educate them about your availability. Ask them to contact/collaborate with you only during those hours. And ensure you don’t respond to non-urgent requests outside those hours.

If you’ll, you’re creating an impression that you’re available 24/7, leading to non-stop asks from colleagues for help/collaboration. And this will rob you of your personal and family/friends time.

So, set boundaries by communicating your working hours and sticking to those plans. Turn off your work-related devices (Slack/email notifications) after the communicated hours.

4. Use Technology

No matter how much you try, there will be distractions working from home: internet surfing, background noise due to family/children, or constant email notifications.

Use Technology to block these distractions to get work done in less time. Here are a few tools you can get started with:

a) Use Mailman to block emails during deep working hours, receive emails during a pre-set time, and block unknown email senders.

b) Use Krisp to cancel unwanted background noise during online meetings.

c) Use Freedom to block distracting websites/apps to focus on work.

d) Use Zapier to automate boring/repetitive tasks to spend more time on creative work.

5. Spend time with your family/friends

Don’t make work-from-home your personality and work 24/7. Instead, spend your time with family/friends. Maybe go to dinner with your parents. Or to offline events with your friends. Be intentional about these activities and do them, no matter what.

Also, spend time alone. Go to walk, engage in your hobbies, or rest to recharge yourself. These activities will help you feel more energized to get your tasks done.

If you achieve inbox zero, you’ll spend less time in your inbox and more on your tasks, increasing your productivity. But how to do that?

Here are the five tips to get you started:

1. Unsubscribe from emails you don’t read

Be honest! You don’t read all the newsletters you subscribe to. Right now, they’re only vying for your attention, distracting you from your work. And what about the thousands of promotional emails from accounts you’ll never buy anything from (they just landed in your inbox without your consent)?

Unsubscribe from them all.

Use Unroll to sort through your unimportant emails and unsubscribe with a click.

2. Create email filters

You can filter your incoming email and send them to a label, archive, or delete them. For example, you can filter your boss’s emails to the “urgent” folder and assign priority to your colleague’s email address.

This way, you will:

a) Save time by separating your important emails in your primary tab (so you can reply to them fast and get over them)

b) Move the less important ones to a separate folder—so they don’t overwhelm you.

Here’s how Google recommends setting up email filters:

a) Open Gmail

b) In the search box at the top, click Show search options

c) Enter your search criteria. If you want to check that your search worked correctly, see what emails show up by clicking Search.

d) At the bottom of the search window, click Create filter.

e) Choose what you’d like the filter to do.

f) Click Create filter.”

3. Open your email only twice a day

Close your emails while you’re doing deep work. The pull of those notifications is irresistible, and you’ll likely get distracted from them. So, ensure you close your email tab while working and only open twice a day to read and reply to emails.

Of course, it’s easier said than done! You might get tempted to check your email just as a way of procrastination. So, the best solution is to block your email during deep working hours.

Use freedom to set focused hours, block Gmail during that time, and later unblock to reply to emails.

4. Avoid clicking on emails more than twice

Laura Mae, Google’s productivity advisor, advises not to click on emails more than twice. Here’s why:

“If you read an email, mark it as unread, [because if you don’t] you’ll have to re-read to remember what to do with it [and waste your time and energy].”

So, “read it once to scan,” and respond, delete, delegate, or choose your course of action instantly. You can even “tag your future action (for example, labeling it as “must respond,” or “to do this week”) then one more time when you answer it.”

5. Use Mailman

All the above tips are great, but you can’t use different apps to unsubscribe, block, and create filters. It’s added work and will only add to your confusion.

The alternative? Use Mailman—the all-in-one app, to control when and what emails should land in your inbox.

Here are the four benefits of using Mailman:

a) Set a Do Not Disturb mode. It will hold back all your emails during a particular schedule (of your choosing).

b) Set Mailman to manage emails and deliver them at hourly intervals, a set number of times per day, or at specific times.

c) Block unimportant emails.

d) Add important senders, domains, or keywords to the VIP list. Bypass our filters to ensure that you always see the things you need to.

Onboarding remote employees the right way is crucial to helping them improve your company’s growth. But how to do that?

Here are the 5 tips to get you started:

1. Provide a work-from-home setup

Ensure you provide the work-from-home setup—laptops, tables, speakers, and anything that will help the new hire succeed at work—before the joining date.

You must also ask them what software and access to paid subscriptions they need and then provide them.

All this would help reduce their first-day anxiety and help them settle on the joining date.

2. Clarify work expectations from day 1

You must communicate their roles and responsibilities on day 1. Especially what you expect them to do and achieve in the first 90 days. It would help them get clarity on what they should do—so they can get started right away.

Here are some tips for communicating work expectations:

a) Be specific. Instead of saying to your marketing hire, “Write good copy and increase our conversions,” say, “I want you to increase our website visitors by 100% and lead conversions by 20% in the next 90 days.”

b) Explain what you mean by good work and provide samples to help them understand.

c) Make them aware of the metrics you’ll use to judge the quality of their work—so they can optimize accordingly.

d) Ask them to send weekly reports saying what you have done that week and what you’ll do the next week.

e) Communicate your preferred communication channel and hours—so they can clarify doubts and keep you updated.

3. Introduce your new hire to your team

Close, a sales CRM company does two things to improve team bonding for every new hire. Here are they:

a) On the joining date, welcome the new hire on the company’s chat. “This allows for just the right amount of fanfare over new hires and encourages the rest of the company to be just as welcoming.”

b) Close ensures employees understand company culture and values to feel connected. So, first, the employee gets blog posts, articles, and other resources to understand the company’s philosophy. They also receive recordings of annual retreats where the executives explain the company’s core values and vision.

“Next, the new hire fills out a ‘Guide to You.’ It’s a quick questionnaire that asks questions about who they are and how they like to work.” The goal is to know the employee on a professional and a personal level. Plus, this way, the team gets a head start on building relationships.

Here’s the best part, though:

“Once new hires fill out their Guide to You, it’s stored in the company wiki. They also have access to everyone else’s Guide to You, meaning they can get to know their team better and the whole company.”

4. Provide buddies to help the new hire

No one is more informed about the company than its employees. Buffer uses this to its advantage to allow current teammates to guide the new hires.

Here are the two people involved (apart from the manager) in helping the new hire (which you can copy):

Role Buddy: “This person is typically a peer working on the same team as the new hire or in a comparable role elsewhere in the company. Depending on how closely the role buddy and new hire work, they’ll talk once or twice a week via Zoom, and this buddy is the go-to person for any task or role-related question the new hire may have (generally asked via Slack or email).”

Culture Buddy: “This person is typically on a different team and selected to help guide the new hire through culture-related discussions and provide additional context on company history and norms. This buddy will chat weekly with the new hire for the first six weeks and as needed thereafter.”

5. Give and take 1:1 feedback every month for the first 3 months

Once you have enough data, tell them what they should double down on and what they should cut down on. While doing so, ensure you’re specific and remind them of instances you liked or want to be corrected.

Also, ask how you can help them succeed:

a) Should you improve communication?

b) Do they need more resources/tools?

c) Ask them about anything you could improve to help them be effective at their job.

Today, remote work has become a part of the work culture. So, it’s a must to set your employees up for success to improve your company’s growth. But how? Here are five tips to help your remote workers do their best work and stay motivated:

1. Communicate work expectations from day 1

While it sounds obvious (and it is), many employers don’t brief employees about their to-do’s and 30/60/90 days goals. The result is a lack of direction in achieving the right goals that sync with the company’s vision.

To avoid this, set up a 1:1 online meeting with your new hire on day one and communicate what you want them to focus on and achieve in the first 30/60/90 days. Avoid being vague; instead, be specific.

For example, don’t tell your writer, “I want you to write persuasive blogs and increase our readership.” It serves no purpose and only adds to the confusion. Rather, say, “I want you to increase our blog readers by 10% in the first 30 days.”

Also, explain what’s good quality work (show examples)—so they have a benchmark while working. Plus, mention the metrics you’ll use to judge the output. Maybe you’ll use blog traffic, time spent on site, or any other metric—telling the employee helps them to tailor their work accordingly.

2. Provide the right resources/tools

If you don’t give your employees the right tools to do their work, you’re setting them up for failure. No matter the talent, each hire needs the necessary software, courses, and more to improve their work efficiency. So, provide them.

a) Provide them with the right work-from-home equipment (laptop, table, chair, software, and more).

b) Give them an annual learning/growth fee to buy courses, paid access to peer community, books, or any material they need for upskilling.

c) Host online/offline sessions with industry leaders—so they can learn from experience and clarify doubts to get ahead.

3. Maintain a consistent communication

Two-way communication is the backbone of employees and the company’s growth. Encourage your workers to communicate with managers to set the right expectations, solve work-related issues, and collaborate.

Ensure managers:

a) Ask for weekly updates to stay updated on employee progress. The employee only needs to answer two questions to send the update: 1) What did I do this week? and 2) What will I do next week?

b) Provide monthly 1:1 feedback. Managers must tell employees what employees are doing good (that they can double down on) and what needs improving (so they work on it).

4. Trust your team to get the work done

The best thing you can give your employees is your complete trust and confidence to get the job done. Of course, losing the visibility of your employee is frustrating, but never resort to micromanaging. It will only cause them unnecessary tension and fatigue.

“But what if they don’t reciprocate the trust and cheat with their work?” I can hear you saying. Fire them. You don’t want such employees who can affect the morale of others.

Trusting your employees also means giving them room to experiment and make mistakes. They likely will make errors when coming up with solutions, but that’s a part of the process.

You must never ridicule/shame them for that because, if you do, your company’s innovation and growth trajectory will compound downwards. Of course, have a culture where employees learn from their mistakes fast and don’t commit them next time.

5. Recognize and reward achievements

Recognition motivates employees to continue their excellent work—so do it. It shouldn’t necessarily be monetary rewards; gestures like public acknowledgment, low-cost gifts, rest, or a chance to take up more work are rewarding, too.

This behavior signals to others that your company values excellency, which will incentivize them to achieve it.

I’ve been working remotely for the last 3+ years and have devised a “must-avoids” to boost my productivity. Here are the top 5 ones:

1. Ignoring energy management

You aren’t at peak energy levels throughout the day. For example, some of you might be productive in the morning, while some might feel energized at night. Despite this, you schedule your tasks according to time management, not energy management, which leads to mediocre work and decreased output.

What should you do?

a) Pay attention to your Biological Prime Time (BPT). It refers to when you have the most energy or feel most productive in accomplishing your tasks.

b) After analyzing your BPT, if you conclude you’re productive in the morning, then schedule your tasks accordingly. Ensure you do your most creative and urgent tasks in the beginning.

c) You shouldn’t waste energy doing manual and repetitive tasks. Use Zapier to automate those tasks and save energy to work on things that require your creativity.

2. Thinking you can work with distractions

I hear you say, “No one thinks or works like that.” But,

a) Don’t you have social media sites running while you work?

b) Or keep your email tab open?

c) Or answer your colleague’s message in the middle of your work?

All these distractions suck the valuable hours you could use for work.

Here’s how to eliminate these distractions:

a) Tell your colleagues your working and communication hours—so they know when not to disturb you and when to contact you for help or collaboration.

b) Use Freedom to block social media, YouTube, and other distracting websites and apps.

c) Use Mailman to block emails when you work. You can schedule all the emails to receive during a specific time of the day (outside your working hours). This way, you can read and reply to all emails at once.

For emails, you can’t miss, use Mailman’s VIP feature that lets you receive these emails as soon as they are sent.

d) Remove distraction triggers from your working environment. For example, don’t have a sofa, snacks, video games, or anything that will distract you at your workstation.

3. Doing all the work yourself

Don’t fall into the trap of doing all the work by yourself. If you do, you’ll complete tasks that are the other person’s responsibilities and miss your deadlines, work on less-important work, and burn out.

What you should do instead:

Learn how to delegate.

a) Know what and when to delegate. Segregate tasks that are tiny, tedious, and time-consuming for you and that fall under the bucket of the other person’s responsibilities.

b) Pick the right person for the job. They must know how to do the job, like the work, and have time to do it.

c) Brief them on the work details, your expectations, the communication channel, how you’ll judge the work, and the deadline.

d) Provide necessary resources for the work.

e) Clarify their doubts and give them the freedom to do the work their way (as long as they achieve the desired output).

4. Attending unproductive meetings

Researchers have found remote workers are scheduling more 30-minute meetings than they ever had before, which is bad news because excessive meetings decrease employee productivity, happiness, and work satisfaction.

You yourself might have seen this happening in your company—how discussions that could have been on Slack/email are scheduled for a 30-minute meeting, which ends up wasting 1 hour for the attendees.

Is there a better alternative? You bet.

a) Prepare a helpful guide (like the one below) for your employees to decide when to host a meeting. It will save time for everyone.

b) And for topics that require a meeting, here’s how to run one:

• Invite only those people who are necessary. You’ll have less chaos, better discussion, and save time. You can record the meeting to distribute it to everyone else.

• Share the meeting agenda in advance. It should cover the time of the meeting, the importance and goal of the meeting, the topic of the discussion, and how every attendee should contribute (with the note that they should come prepared for what they have to say during the call).

• Start the meeting by reminding everyone of its goal, and have a facilitator to ensure everyone gets a chance to speak.

• End the meeting by summarizing the discussion and assigning responsibilities.

5. Resisting rest

By working non-stop and refusing rest, you’ll not only burnout, but also decrease your output and efficiency. So, ensure you’re intentional about resting to recharge yourself to boost your work productivity.

Here are some steps you could take:

a) Take a short break (15–20 minutes) after every 2.5-3 hours of deep work.

b) Never work on Sundays unless urgent (Give yourself a day to re-energize)

c) Avoid working overtime consistently.

Email batching is the process through which you receive emails only twice (or thrice, depending on how you want to set it up), which allows you to get more work done in less time and increase your overall productivity.

Here are the 4 research-based facts that show how:

1. Fewer context switches

No matter how many high-priority tasks you’ve, you’ll always have a few menial tasks to do in a day. Replying to emails is one of them. The problem arises when you don’t have a set schedule to do it and instead do it as and when someone emails you.

For example, say you’re in the middle of completing an urgent task and get a notification that someone emailed you. 9/10 times you’ll attend the email. Why? Due to the Zeigarnik effect—which says you remember unfinished/interrupted tasks more than the completed ones.

Whenever someone emails you, you live in uncertainty about it and are stressed until you know what the sender mailed you—so you want to deal with it soon. But this context switching between work and email kills your productivity, and research shows it takes 30 minutes to refocus.

What if you didn’t get the notification? You would be 100% focused on the task and get it done with near-perfect efficiency. That’s where email batching comes in handy—you receive emails only during a preset time, not during your work time.

2. Lower emotional exhaustion

Behavioral experiments show that people who check emails only a few times (that’s the whole point of email batching) face less stress than those who do it constantly in a day. And the lesser stressed you are, the more productive and efficient you’ll be.

Here’s why:

Stress diminishes your ability to focus and find creative solutions because your mind is exhausted and doesn’t want to put in the required time and energy. But when you aren’t stressed, your mind isn’t tired, which lets you do work faster and leverage your creative thinking skills—increasing your work output.

3. Fewer distractions, which means more deep work

Cal Newport coined “deep work.”

He says, “Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It’s a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time.” It improves work quality, helps you avoid distractions, and increases work satisfaction.

And what’s one of the major things holding you to do deep work? It’s spending more time than you should on email messaging and letting it control you.

But by batching your emails, you take over the control (as you block the #1 distraction), save your energy (that you can use it doing your work), and increase your chances of productive work.

4. Undistracted time for high-priority tasks

When you batch your emails, you ensure long periods of undistracted time for high-priority tasks. How?

By presetting 1 hour per day for emails, you no longer have to worry about emails (because you know you’ll attend to them at a given time) and can do other work peacefully. And as per what time you’ve set for checking the emails, you can reply to people without missing anyone.

Practice email batching now

With Mailman, you can practice email batching with one click: receive emails at hourly intervals, a set number of times per day, or at specific times. Choose the best time (that works best for you) to increase your productivity. Sign up here and get started.

Remote work has changed how you communicate, work, and collaborate with your team. Hiring is no exception. You now don’t have the luxury to meet candidates face-to-face, but that shouldn’t be a problem.

I’ve hired 20+ candidates remotely, and here are five best practices to get you started:

1. Outline your ideal candidate

Note the non-negotiable skills you want your candidate to have. Start with defining the job responsibilities and the qualities a person would need to fulfill them. You’ll have a starting point to screen candidates.

You can even look for successful candidates in a similar position in other companies and ask their manager what makes them the best person to do the job. You’ll have a list of qualities you can look for when interviewing someone for that job.

Another way is to find ideal personas on social media. If you’re active on social media, you’ll sometime interact with someone who might be near-perfect for the given position. Ensure you note down what qualities make you think so, and use that as a guide to look for the ideal candidate in the future.

2. Write a clear job description

After you have outlined your ideal candidate, prepare a detailed job description. Ensure you list all the must-have qualities—so only the right candidates apply. Because if you write a vague description, you’ll attract people who aren’t the right fit, making the hiring process longer and tiresome.

Here are some tips for writing an excellent job description:

a) Ask the manager under which the person will work to define what they consider a good candidate. Mention those skills and requirements.

b) Be as specific as you can about what the job responsibilities would be. Also, write the first few goals you want the candidate to achieve.

c) Divide the skills into “must-have” and “OK to have.”

d) Sell yourself. Answer why the candidate should work for you versus your competitors. Mention the remote working perks (maybe free software access, learning budget, free work setup, and more) they would get.

3. Ask the right questions

If you ask vague questions, you’ll get vague answers, which wouldn’t help you in shortlisting the final candidates. But if you ask the right questions, the job becomes easier. So, let a qualified interviewer (who knows the ins and outs of the job, technical details, and what person would make the best fit) ask questions.

Ensure you let the interviewer know what skills you’re looking for in the person—so they ask questions accordingly. Consider asking questions that show you their communication level, soft skills, and technical knowledge.

4. Take a test

Of course, the candidate will show you their previous work, which will give you a rough idea of them. But the test will help you evaluate whether they can work in a remote environment.

a) Do they submit the work on time?

b) Do they communicate clearly?

c) Do they know to use the tools/software they would use regularly?

Give the candidate a task that will be part of their daily responsibilities. For example, you can ask a marketer to write a sales copy, an engineer to debug code, or a UX designer to design a user-friendly product.

Ensure you discuss with your team what metrics you would use to judge the test and filter candidates accordingly.

5. Let the CEO and the team talk with the candidate to finalize them

If you follow the above process, you can shortlist 4-5 final candidates. You can ask your team and the CEO to chat with those candidates. Ask everyone to score each candidate, and you can finalize the one with the most points.

Or you can have a “decision maker” who will consider the score/opinion of the team and the CEO and choose the final candidate accordingly. Once that is done, make the offer.

You can’t work without emails, especially during remote work. It helps you communicate and collaborate faster. So, why not learn to use it better to save time and improve collaboration? The better you manage your email inbox, the better your work output will be.

Here are the 5 email tips to maximize your inbox productivity:

1. Check emails only twice a day

An average email user checks emails 15 times per day, or every 37 minutes. That’s 30–40 minutes wasted every workday that you could have spent actually working. Hence, ensure you make it a habit to check and reply to emails only twice a day.

How to make this possible? Use Mailman’s Do Not Disturb (DND) mode and delivery slots feature.

a)

The DND mode lets you block all your emails during a specific time duration. You can, with the help of Mailman, hold back all your emails when you’re working and don’t want any distractions.

b)

The delivery feature helps you receive emails only when you want them. For example, if you want to read emails at 9 am and 5 pm, you can do so.

Or it’s also possible to receive emails at set time intervals. For example, Mailman will send you emails 3 times a day at every 4-hour gap.

2. Use email as a meeting note tool

This is an underrated hack!

Whenever you’re in a remote meeting, open an email template, and take notes. Don’t try to write everything said—write bullet points of only the important stuff that captures the gist of the meeting and makes you aware of your responsibilities post-meeting.

Then, end the call 5–10 minutes early. Use that time to polish your notes—correct spelling errors and sentence structure.

Finally, send the notes as a follow-up/recap to anyone concerned with the meeting.

3. Sort out read emails from unread ones

You can do anything, but never mix read and unread emails. It adds unnecessary confusion and creates anxiety. To avoid this, start by organizing your Gmail inbox: start and flag the important emails, delete emails frequently, and more.

Then, separate read and unread emails in Gmail:

Create a multiple inbox pane. Or move emails to a label that denotes a specific action (such as “to do” or “follow up”).

Setting up multiple inboxes is easy:

• Open Gmail.
• Click Setting. Scroll to Inbox type.
• Select Default, Important first, Unread first, Starred first, Priority Inbox, or Multiple Inboxes.

You’ll have multiple inboxes enabled:

4. Remember to follow up with nudges

You may forget to follow up on an important query/customer complaint/colleague asks due to a hectic work schedule or other reasons. Sometimes that may lead to unnecessary chaos. To avoid this, Google allows you to choose whether to see old messages at the top of your inbox with a suggestion to reply or follow up.

Here’s how to enable this:

a) Go to Gmail.

b) At the top right, click Settings > See all settings.

c) On the General tab, scroll to Nudges and check or uncheck (if you want to disable nudges) the two options.

d) At the bottom, click Save changes.

5. Use email templates

If you’re a manager, you’ll have to answer with the same reply every time someone emails you with a common question. Why waste time doing that?

Google lets you “compose your reply once and save the email as a template. You can also include your signature. Later, you can open the template and send it again with just a few clicks.”

Here’s how to do this:

1. Enable templates

a) Open Gmail.

b) At the top right, click Settings > See all settings.

c) At the top, click Advanced.

d) In the Templates section, select Enable.

e) At the bottom, click Save Changes.

2. Create or change a template

a) Open Gmail and click Compose.

b) In the Compose window, enter your template text.

c) Click on the three dots (besides the delete icon at the bottom corner) > Templates.

d) Choose an option:

• To create a new template, click Save draft as template > Save as new template.
• To change a previously saved template, click Save draft as template, and under Overwrite Template, choose a template and click Save to overwrite it.

e) (Optional) To send an email, compose your message and click Send.

3. Insert a template

a) Open Gmail and click Compose.

b) Click the three dots > Templates.

c) To insert a template, under Insert template, choose a saved template to insert in your email.

d) Compose the rest of your message and click Send.

What makes the team successful and effective? It’s psychological safety, according to Google’s Aristotle project.

It says, “Psychological safety refers to a belief that a team is safe for risk-taking without being seen as ignorant, incompetent, negative, or disruptive. In a team with high psychological safety, teammates feel safe to take risks around their team members. They feel confident that no one will embarrass or punish anyone else for admitting a mistake, asking a question, or offering a new idea.”

If your team has high psychological safety, it will improve team collaboration, work output, and increase work efficiency. But how do you create it in a remote workplace?

Here are the 5 ways to get started:

1. Lead by example

As with most team cultural aspects, psychological safety is something that needs to practice by leaders to set an example. You can’t force it on anyone and behave yourself otherwise. Instead, share your mistakes (it shows vulnerability) to show it’s OK to make them as long as you correct them soon.

Here are some ways to lead by example:

a) Acknowledge your mistakes when you make them.

b) Actively listen to other opinions.

c) Consider from your employee’s point of view: give them the freedom to work as they like (as long as they achieve the results) and avoid blaming.

d) Focus on building team relationships by encouraging them to do 1-on-1 get-to-know-each-other calls. It’ll build trust and improve team collaboration. Start with you talking with some of your employees.

2. Build a culture where no one shames anyone for experimenting/risk-taking

Mistakes are essential to progress and innovation. So, encourage your employees to think differently and implement their ideas without fearing they’ll lose their job or be shamed if they make a mistake.

Your employees won’t feel safe if you say this, but only if you act on your words after someone makes mistakes. For example, never punish, blame or humiliate someone when they blow it. Instead, give them the confidence that it’s OK to err and ask them to learn from it and not repeat it.

Also, give private feedback and tell them how they can reduce their mistakes. Entertain their questions and help them improve.

3. Set up your employees for success

If you don’t give your employees any tools, you shouldn’t expect them to maximize their output. Simple as that. Every worker requires the right resources to succeed—a marketer needs the necessary software to collect data and make decisions, and a designer requires the right design tools to succeed.

So, ensure you set up your employees for success by providing the right tools and resources from day 1. Here are some ways to do so:

a) Ask your employees what they need to do excellent work and ensure you provide them with that.

b) Pay them an annual learning/growth fee—so anyone can buy courses, app subscriptions, or access paid communities to upskill themselves.

c) Host training sessions by experts.

4. Be open to feedback

Your employees shouldn’t be afraid to challenge you if they disagree. But that will only happen if you listen to honest feedback and implement the advice.

The first thing you can do is involve your team in decision-making. Ask them to challenge your opinions (if they disagree) by sharing viewpoints backed by data/examples. Initially, many won’t, but if you work on some of the right views and correct others (explaining why you’re right instead of ridiculing them), everyone will start sharing.

Another way is to schedule regular 1-on-1 meetings to listen to how you can improve and what you can do to make their work easier. To make it easier for anyone to give feedback, you can take an anonymous survey—so they feel safe and provide feedback without fearing anything.

5. Get behind your team

Support your team at every stage—whether good or bad.

When an employee underperforms, listen to them, and help them identify and get rid of their shortcomings. And when someone performs exceedingly well, credit them in front of everyone (via an all-hands remote meeting) and reward them with the right incentives.

This will boost their confidence and encourage them to work harder, experiment, and improve.

Email’s importance has grown 10X due to the rise of remote work, but this has led to employees wasting hours on emails and, ultimately, not focusing on work. To solve this, here are five email productivity tips from experts:

1. Inbox zero

Merlin Mann invented the inbox zero technique. It’s the process to keep your email inbox empty most of the time. But he advises that zero here doesn’t refer to the number of messages in the inbox but to “the amount of time an employee’s brain is in his inbox.”

Here’s how Mailman helps you to achieve inbox zero:

a) It holds back all your emails during a time interval—so you can work uninterrupted.

b) You can also set delivery time to receive all your emails and read them at once.

c) Mailman blocks all the unimportant senders to get rid of spam.

d) You can set a VIP list to ensure you receive a few important emails as soon as the sender sends them.

2. Use a time tracker app

Patty Kreamer is a productivity coach and a certified professional organizer. Her tip is to use a time tracker app (like Clockify) to track how much time she spends on emails.

She explains why: “So often, my clients tell me that they don’t think they waste a lot of time, but upon tracking it for a week, are blown away by how much they waste their time on emails. When you see that you are spending 18 hours a week on email, unless you are processing online orders or your business is run by email,” you should change this habit.

Track your time and note down what causes you to spend so much of your time on emails. Then, take the correct measures to ensure that doesn’t happen. For example, if you spend more time because everyone keeps you messaging, you should set boundaries by letting your colleagues know when they should contact you and shouldn’t.

3. Write, walk, then send

Max Wesman, VP of Product Management at Checkr, swears by this principle for writing better emails. “I rarely do my best work on the first draft, and email writing is no different. After writing out your email, go for a short walk. The idea is to relax, unwind, and think about things outside the email that you were sending."

When you take a short 10-minute break and then read your draft, you’ll be more likely to see mistakes and omissions that you can correct now. You can then improve your email, add important context, and more.

Of course, do this only for important emails, not for emails like asking your colleagues about updates.

4. Schedule emails

Jim Hoddenbach, author, photographer, and blogger, advises scheduling emails—so you can avoid wasting time and focus on doing other tasks.

“Nothing is worse than feeling like all you did was answer emails all day. Then I started scheduling when I’d check and respond to emails: three times a day, morning, afternoon, and evening. It allowed me to ignore emails and focus on other tasks throughout the day until each scheduled check-in point. Interestingly, this also allowed me to focus on email when it was time, and I spent much less time in my inbox than I otherwise would have.”

Here’s how to schedule emails: Click Compose > Write your email > Hit the button beside the SEND option > Click Schedule send > Select the date and time > Select schedule send.

5. Use the search power

Laura Mae, Google’s productivity advisor, is a strong proponent of using the search feature in emails. It does make sense because Google started a search engine. The same search superpowers are also available in Gmail. You can search for anything in Gmail and get a result in seconds. Just like Google.

Type necessary keywords to dig for relevant emails. You can search by date, sender, subject, and more. You can get even more granular by using search queries like “has: attachment” or “older_than: 6m” (m=months).

For example, let’s enter the following query: “to:me from:ahrefs.com”: It gives you every email from Ahrefs.

Here are other search operators you can use:

While remote work has multiple benefits—zero commute stress, working when we feel energized, healthy work-life balance, and more—it isn’t devoid of distractions (poor working environment, browsing the Internet non-stop, mobile, and more). So, if you don’t avoid them, you’ll miss your work deadlines and be inefficient.

Here are the five ways to get rid of remote work distractions to complete your tasks on time and increase your work satisfaction:

1. Create a dedicated workspace

A dedicated workspace will help you separate work from your home life. You’ll have a place where you can restrict your family members not to visit and keep all the distractions (TV noise, family gatherings, and more) away.

If you have a separate room, you can create your office over there. But if you don’t, a corner that can host a desk, laptop, and other work essentials is good to go.

Ensure you create strict working hours and stick to your schedule. This discipline will improve your focus and help you create a working environment—necessary to get rid of distractions and help you get in the work mode fast.

2. Set boundaries

You must ask your family to avoid constantly passing by your home office and assigning you duties during your working hours. Tell them you’ll do all the home tasks outside your working hours.

Set the same boundaries with your colleagues. Communicate your working hours with them and ask them to collaborate with you only during those hours. Say no to requests outside your schedule. Also, avoid meaningless meetings. Plus, never set the impression that you’re available 24/7 because they’ll pile you up with requests—causing your burnout.

3. Use the right tools

The right remote tools and resources are critical to keeping distractions away.

Here are some to help you:

a) Use Freedom to block distracting websites (social media sites, YouTube, random blogs, and more) and apps.

b) Use Mailman to control your inbox. With it, you can postpone email receiving during your working hours, pre-set hours to receive emails only during certain hours in the day, block unimportant email senders, and more.

c) Use Krisp to cancel unwanted background noise during meetings.

d) Set up a high-speed internet connection—so you can do uninterrupted work.

4. Rest

If you work non-stop, you’ll experience fatigue, burnout, and motivation loss. Without rest, you’ll distract yourself and find reasons not to work. So, when your body signals you to rest, do it. Your body needs to recharge to reclaim focus and energy to extend your productivity levels.

Take short breaks every 2-3 hours. You can read books, engage in your hobby, walk, or just sit and relax. Also, don’t work on weekends (unless necessary).

5. Know what distracts you

Everyone has a few triggers that lead to wasting hours. It could be checking your phone every 30 minutes, kids, opening multiple non-work-related browser tabs, or agreeing to every request of your colleague.

When you know what distracts you, you can work toward avoiding it. Of course, you won’t know immediately. So, every day/week, analyze what distracted you or led you to waste time.

Asking questions like “What sucks my work energy?” and “What distracts me from work?” will help you be aware of your distractions. Once you know, work on avoiding them and be patient. The distractions won’t just go away on day 1—so don’t be harsh on yourself if you aren’t getting rid of them right away. But ensure you continuously work toward it and get rid of them within 30 days.

I’ve been working remotely for the last 3+ years. During that time, I faced many obstacles to improving my work productivity, but through trial and error, I’ve prepared the five golden rules to increase your work output.

Here they are:

1. Clear work expectations from day 1

Productivity is ultimately doing your work efficiently and on time. That will only happen if you know what the company expects from you, what good work looks like for the manager, and which metrics they will use to judge it. So, hold a 1-on-1 meeting on day 1 to get these answers.

You should also ask for regular feedback on how you’re fairing. That way, you can double down on what you’re doing best and cut down on the things that reduce your work output.

2. Energy Management

Time management refers to planning without considering the intangible aspects: the feelings one may experience, energy/productivity levels during a particular time, working conditions, and more.

On the contrary, energy management is planning your day to account for your energy levels. For example, if you feel energetic during the night, you schedule your work accordingly, despite the traditional wisdom being you should work from 9-5. Remote work gives you the flexibility to prioritize energy management. That way, you work on your terms—you decide when and where to work.

Start with listening to your biological time—note when you’re at peak energy levels/the highest productivity levels and schedule the most crucial tasks (that require 100% attention and peak creativity) accordingly.

For example, if you are a morning person, do the most critical tasks in the morning, and schedule the trivial tasks for afternoons.

The next step would be to find what drains your energy levels and discard them. For example, if you hate working around constant noise or disorganization, choose a peaceful and clean place (you can even organize your workspace the day before).

Another way to manage your energy is to have a strict sleep schedule. Ensure you get 7-8 hours of consistent sleep every day. The final thing would be to embed rest in your working schedule. Take breaks between two large tasks, don’t work on weekends, and indulge yourself in a hobby or anything that relaxes you. These two things will help you recharge, improve focus, and keep you energized.

3. Tune-out distractions

While working from home has plenty of advantages, it still has its share of disadvantages—easy access to distractions being one of them. There’s no one to monitor your never-ending internet surfing/social media scrolling. Plus, you must deal with family members constantly passing by and chattering.

Here are some ways to avoid distractions:

a) Communicate your work schedule to your family and ask them not to disturb you during that time.

b) Use Freedom to block distracting websites (social media sites) and apps. You can set a schedule to block them when you work and unblock them after those hours.

c) Use Krisp to block unwanted background noise during online meetings.

d) When you work, keep your phone in another room and always have a water bottle—so you don’t leave your place for it.

e) Stick to a working schedule—so it becomes a habit for your body to work during that time, and avoid wasting unnecessary hours trying to do it.

4. Set boundaries

Don’t treat remote work as being available 24/7 for your company. It sets the wrong expectations that you would agree to any request, which leads you to work overtime, ultimately causing burnout. Therefore, set boundaries.

Start with communicating your working hours and when someone can contact you with your team. Don’t collaborate beyond those hours (I understand if it happens occasionally, but it shouldn’t become a permanent thing).

Also, have strict criteria to accept meeting requests. Meetings are the biggest productivity killer—so ensure you participate only in the important ones. Prepare a decision tree to help everyone decide which conversations need a 30-minute meeting and which don’t.

You should also say no to protect the time you can use for your work and family/friends.

5. Delegate

Delegation is the secret many remote workers do not use. It not only gives you time to focus on the important stuff, but builds trust with your team (that you trust them to do the job) and improves team collaboration, increasing team productivity.

Here’s how to get started:

a) Short-list tasks you can delegate. These could be tasks that are other people’s responsibility or are tedious and time-consuming.

b) Pick the right person. Ensure they are free, qualified, and have time for the work.

c) Provide the instructions, work expectations (be specific in what you want them to do), resources, and other help to help them succeed.

d) Entertain questions to clarify their doubts.

e) Don’t micromanage them by asking for work status every 30 minutes or for them to do the work your way.

f) Provide feedback to help them improve next time.

Setting up your work-from-home office shouldn’t be a time-consuming task. I’ve been working remotely for the last 3+ years, and have short-listed the following five tips to get it right and start working right away:

1. Find the best location

You must have a space that separates your work and personal lives—a place you can work from without family disturbances or other distractions.

If you have a dedicated room you can use as a home office, that’s awesome. But if you don’t, pick a home corner where no one will bother you. For example, your basement, kitchen area, or other vacant space. Ideally, choose a place with consistent light, noiseless background and that can hold your computer/laptop, chair, and other necessary work equipment.

You must also ask your family not to distract you during working hours. Also, test your Internet/Wi-Fi signal around your workstation.

2. Invest in the right equipment

You must have the right tools to work from home. Here are some things you must invest in:

a) Choose an ergonomic chair with an adjustable height, excellent back support, built-in lumbar support, and adjustable armrests.

b) Similarly, choose a table for your computer/laptop with a good height—so you don’t have to bend regularly and hurt your back.

c) Buy Bluetooth, a mic, and noiseless headphones for quality meetings.

d) Purchase necessary stationers according to your work needs.

Here’s a good list of all the short-listed equipment (which laptop, headphones, chair, table, keyboard, and more you must consider buying) you can buy.

3. Keep distractions away

Working from home comes with several distractions you should tackle to be a successful remote worker. Here are some ways to get started:

a) Always have a water bottle and other things (files, paper, and more) that will help you be productive around you—so you don’t leave the workplace for such things.

b) Use Freedom to block distracting websites and apps.

c) Keep everything—your snack, video game, phone, sofa, and more—that can distract you away from your workspace.

4. Get access to the software necessary for work productivity

You’ll need access to the software—Google suite, video conferencing app, project management software, daily communication channel, and more—to work efficiently. Generally, your employer will give you access to them. Ensure you get it right on day 1.

But apart from these, there are tools you would need depending on your job to help you do a better job. For example, if you’re a marketer, it could be a subscription to a paid app/community, specific software, and more. Ask your employer to pay for them, or if you can purchase them yourself.

5. Follow the basic etiquette to keep your work-from-home office and yourself healthy

a) Always clean your workspace after your working hours.

b) Every night, ensure you have all the necessary things to start work tomorrow.

c) Keep your spine straight while working. Of course, there will be times when it isn’t due to multiple reasons, but ensure it’s straight most times.

d) Keep your computer/laptop at least 25 inches from your eyes.

e) Adjust your monitor’s brightness level such that it doesn’t affect your eyes and cause headaches.