Getting your team off email

Nobody gets a team off email by banning email. You give the work a better home and let the inbox go quiet on its own. This path does it in four moves, each of which uses email to get there.

1. Forward the work in

Every project can have its own address, shown on the project's Integrations page. Forward an email to it and the subject becomes a task, the body its description, the attachments its files, and you are the one who raised it. Nothing to retype, nothing lost in a thread.

Do this: open a project, press Integrations, make its address, and forward one real email to it. The guide: Replying by email.

2. Reply from the inbox, land on the task

When a task changes, the people following it get an email that carries the change, the note or the new date, in full. Reply to that email and the reply becomes a note on the task. The inbox is still where the message arrives; the task is where it stays.

Do this: the next notice you get, reply to it instead of forwarding it to someone. The guide: Replying by email.

3. Take the day in one email

Instead of one message per change, take a daily summary: what is late, what is due today, what changed since yesterday, with the content in the email. One message in the morning, read on a phone, and the rest of the day's notices can be off.

Do this: open your profile, Notifications, and switch to the daily digest. Read tomorrow's. The guide: Notifications and digests.

4. Ask instead of searching your mail

The Tasks page has a box that takes a question in your own words, "what did Sandy finish last week", and sets the filters for you. It also answers how-to questions from the guide. It is the search you used to do in your inbox, pointed at the work instead.

Do this: on the Tasks page, ask one question you would have searched your email for. The guide: Ask in English.