If your email is getting a bit out of hands these days and our previous tips haven’t helped, maybe it’s time to check into some software solutions. Xobni, a free Outlook Plugin, has done wonders for my personal email productivity. Let’s take a look at some of it’s features.

After installing Xobni, it will take a few minutes to gather information from your contacts and the emails that are currently in your inbox. As it does this, it is gathering profile information from each of the contacts by scanning the content from the email.  The information it collects can be accessed through a side panel in Outlook.

Xobni’s side panel has several features. The first and most noticable happens when you click on an email in your inbox. Doing so will cause the sidebar to fill up with information about that particular contact which gives you one click access to:

• Their phone number(which was gathered during the scanning process if they had their phone number listed in their signiture).
• A list of people that have been included in the correspondance between you and this person.
• Threaded conversations that you have had.
• A list of any attachments that have been included in any email from them.
• A chart showing when they send and recieve email from you.

The conversations thread is quite useful as it shows all of the correspondence in one zoomable window, making the search for a specific email dead simple. You could, of course, just use their fast search option if you knew a particular keyword.

A lot of the features found in Xobni make finding information quickly from people that you talk to quite a bit, especially if you are needing an attachment and don’t recall which email it came in. But one feature that is incredible for all purposes is the chart showing their email activity with you. Knowing that a certain contact emails me at a certain time during the day, or the time slot in which most people tend to send me important messages, means that I can step away for most of the day and only check back at certain times when I know I might have something important waiting for me.

Clicking on the Gear icon in the bottom of the sidebar will bring up a list of options. One option that stands out is the analytics. Going there can give you an incredible insight to your email habits. Wondering why it is taking someone so long to reply? Check their stats and see what their typical response time is. What time do I receive the most email? You can find a lot of data there to figure out the best time to be near email, freeing you up for the rest of the day without worry.

Other tips on Email productivity? Leave them in the comments.

Xobni.com