Email is a great invention—so great that, collectively, we use it 300 billion times a day. And that number is only growing.
Each email message includes two very important pieces of information to help you deal with it effectively—the subject line and the importance level.
What it’s missing is an indicator to tell you what kind of email it is.
Does the email require you to do something? Is it important reading material? Does it relate to a project, a team, or an upcoming meeting? Is it personal or confidential?
If the software developers who created today’s email systems were going to add this, they’d have done it by now.
But there’s another option. We can do it ourselves. It’s free, and it doesn’t even require a software download.
#Hashtags.
Hashtags are simple. They’re familiar (many people use them already). And they’re easy to implement.
So easy that we can simply start using them. Now.
Only instead of attaching them to tweets, we suggest using them as the first word of email subject lines.
A standard set of email hashtags might help get things started. Let’s begin with these six:
- #Action—this email asks you to do something
- #Respond—the sender needs to hear back from you
- #Meet—this relates to an upcoming meeting (or one just held)
- #Info or #FYI—no action needed, but here’s something you should know
- #Hot—information in the email is time-sensitive
- #Personal
Beyond that, hashtags are infinitely adaptable. Anyone can start using them. They can be created on the fly. So invent your own—and, where it would help, use more than one!
Hashtags not only provide at-a-glance visual cues, they can be used in rules and filters. That enables you to sort your email more effectively—for instance, collecting all the #Action emails in one spot.
The list above might not be the most useful six. They’re merely suggestions. Hashtags are a democracy. The best ideas will rise to the top.
We’d like to know what you think. Is this a good idea? How can we make it better? Would you include different tags in the proposed set? How can we encourage their adoption?
Most important of all, will you start using them?
If you will, you’ll start a revolution in how we handle our email—and how much time we reclaim as a result.
What you can do right now:
- Use hashtags in your email subject lines
- Encourage others to use them, too
- Promote emailhashtags.org in your email signature
- “Like” this page and tweet the URL
Don’t wait for someone else to start the trend. Use a hashtag in the next email you send.
The case for email hashtags 