Email Task Management: Why You Need It and How to Implement It

I will share the task details with you by email.

I am sure you have heard or said this simple sentence one too many times.

Maybe it worked when you had only one or two, or hardly three team members to collaborate with. But once your team starts growing, this one simple line leads to a mess:

• piles of emails
• scrolling through endless threaded conversations
• attaching multiple files
• waiting hours just to get confirmation
• spending many minutes finding an email you want

Once I spent almost 30 minutes finding a 6 months old conversation with one of my colleagues. I almost gave up. I am sure you can relate to that.

The solution posed to this early 21st-century AQL for task management is email task management. Email task management focuses on using a task management tool to manage tasks from your email inbox. You can create and assign tasks from your inbox, sort and organize emails, track task progress, manage tasks, communicate with your team, and more.

You have the world of project management software available too. But, people who relied on emails since the beginning, lack the feeling that they are “working” the moment they switch to a slightly different landscape of project management software. They are so used to emails they do not want to leave their email inbox.

However, the change is coming, considering an average office worker receives around 121 emails every workday and the amazing capabilities current project management software offers.

In this post, we will understand email task management and its benefits, how email task management works, tips to choose the right task management software, the best tool for task management, and more.

Streamline your team communication with ProofHub – Sign up for a free trial today!  (No hidden fees, No credit card required!)

What is email task management?

Email task management includes the use of task management software to create, assign, organize, track, and manage tasks using inbox. Depending on the capabilities of a task management software, the features you get in the email inbox vary such as task creation, task comments, task scheduling, task notes, sorting and organizing emails, and real-time chat.

Benefits of email task management

The main purpose of the task and email management software is to make life easy for project managers. You know by experience that every morning you are bombarded with emails. It takes a lot of time, energy, and effort to go through all the emails and assign new tasks.

Email task management helps you save time and effort, stay organized, and offer various other benefits. Have a look at them.

• Saves time and effort: Email task management helps you save time and effort by allowing you to create and assign tasks directly from your inbox.
• Stay organized: You can organize your emails and tasks. It helps you stay organized with all of your tasks in one place.
• Helps in task tracking: You can quickly get information on all the tasks, check the deadlines, track the progress, and manage & plan accordingly. This ensures you do not miss any tasks.
• Improves productivity: You can easily find and sort your emails and access all tasks in your inbox. This reduces all the wasted hours searching through your inbox and improves your productivity by making it easy to access the required details.      
• Makes collaboration easy: Assigning tasks with email sends a notification to the receiver and allows you to attach files. It makes collaboration easy. Also, it is a great platform for sharing one-to-one messages that are confidential in nature.   

Email in its original form is not sufficient for effective email task management. There are email task management software, apps, and tools that enhance the capabilities of email. Let’s learn about it.     

How does email task management software work? 

Most email task management software generally works by allowing you to convert your emails into tasks. Each software has its own workflow for that, but essentially, they help you convert emails into tasks.

Email task management software integrates with your inbox and offers you enhanced functionalities. The features vary from software to software.

Let’s have a quick look at the common features that an effective email task management software should have.

1. Convert tasks into emails

Software should integrate into your email inbox to allow you to easily convert emails into tasks so that you can assign tasks directly from your inbox. It helps you set the due date, add task descriptions, create subtasks, create labels, add attachments, and add multiple people to the task.             

2. Manage and track task

Software should allow you to track the progress of tasks so that you know the status of tasks. Most tools offer you a Kanban Board view that helps you easily track, control, prioritize, and manage tasks to complete the projects on time. It also helps in capacity planning to ensure everyone in the team has work to do.

3. Task notifications

The last thing you want to hear from a team member is ‘I miss the task notification.’ Effective software should notify the users about the tasks and other mentions. Some tools also allow you to tag colleagues on the task to ensure updates are not missed. 

4. Automate tasks

Some tasks are repetitive in nature. The software should have task scheduling and automated task features. It saves you time and effort on planned and repetitive tasks.

5. Helps in communication

Most email-integrated task management software empowers the user with a central real-time messaging platform. It helps you get immediate attention from your co-workers.

Passing thoughts: Some people prefer using project management software (PMS) to manage tasks and email together but they need not necessarily integrate into your email inbox. The purpose of email task management software and project management software is similar, but PMS has its own task dashboard.

How to set up an effective email task management system?

Email task management software is not a magic pill that will work on its own. You need to set up an email task management system effectively to make the most out of it. Here are the five simple steps to do so:

1. Define what you want

The first step is to find out what you want from the email task management software. It offers a wide range of features. Some are highly functional to you while others may not matter to you. For example, if you need a clear view of where all of your projects and tasks stand, you will use the Kanban Board first. Find out what you need help with and set up the tool accordingly.

2. Categorize your tasks

The software allows you to create tasks from email, but it does not do the organization for you. You need to categorize the tasks based on priorities and deadlines. Create projects and add a list of tasks to them. Further breakdown the tasks into subtasks for better control.    

3. Organize your email inbox

To work effectively, the first step is to organize your email inbox. Use the email task management software to categorize your email inbox based on labels and email filters. It will help you find the important information quickly and with proper organization you will not miss the important information.        

4. Create a to-do list and set reminders

It is very important to have a to-do list so that you have a clear idea of what you want to do. Set reminders and notifications to ensure you meet task deadlines and complete projects on time. Use time management techniques to effectively manage your time. Set a fixed time for replying to emails, tracking project progress, and doing your tasks.

5. Integrate with your tech stack for enhanced functions

Email task management software is not a complete, capable project management software. You may need to integrate other tech stacks for the functions you want. For example, if you need help with reporting and project analysis or time tracking, you may need to integrate other project management tools. Try to fill the gaps with integration from your other tech stack.

Now you know what email task management is, how it works, and how to do it. Let’s talk about the best tool for managing tasks and email. 

What is the best tool for email and task management?

The market is flooded with email task management, task management Apps with email support, email management, and email project management tools. They all differ in capabilities, functionalities, features, and pricing. It is up to you to find out what exactly you need. 

For example, some software just helps you with cleaning unwanted emails from your inbox. Some help you with assigning tasks but do not offer team collaboration. 

If you are looking for a complete competent email project management software for managing tasks and emails together with team collaboration, ProofHub is your best choice of tool.

ProofHub – Best software for managing tasks, teams, and emails together

ProofHub is a comprehensive project management and team collaboration tool that streamlines your workflow by offering task management, email integration, and team collaboration features – all in one platform. With ProofHub, you can easily manage tasks, communicate with team members, and collaborate on projects, making it the ultimate productivity tool for businesses of all sizes.

Here’s how ProofHub can help you manage tasks and emails together:

1. Save hours of productivity by sending email directly from tasks

There is no need to spend time crafting an email, adding the details of the task to an email, finding the list of the people to add, and so on. 

With ProofHub, you can send emails directly from tasks. When you create a task and assign it to a team member, they will get an email in the inbox. Every time a task update is made, all the collaborators will get a notification. This ensures no one misses any important update on a task.

Here’s what exactly ProofHub tasks allow you to do:

• Add all the information required to complete the task: due date, assignees, task description, subtasks, and attach files
• Add multiple assignees to a task in one go 
• Add labels for task prioritization 
• Tag colleagues using task comments to share important information  
• Time tracking for productivity analysis
• Create the customized task workflow and use built-in templates for better control and management
• Get actionable insights into your project and resources with project reports 

2. Manage tasks from anywhere using email

You can manage and create tasks anywhere from your phone or laptop using your email inbox. This offers you the flexibility to work from any device, using your email inbox, even if you are not logged into your ProofHub account.      

All you need to do is copy an email address associated with a task in ProofHub. Every task has a unique email address. Paste the address into your email inbox and start collaborating on tasks from your email inbox.

You can learn more about how Email-in tasks work by clicking here.  

3. Reply to the important task comments from your email

There is no need to switch tabs to reply to the ProofHub Task Comments. You can directly reply from your inbox to the email notifications you received. Simply press the reply button and your reply will be added as a task comment. This makes communication easy and fast for you.          

4. Take complete control of your task management in one place

You can stay on top of task management with ProofHub centralized task management. Emails are good for communication but do not empower you with task management.

Here is how ProofHub helps you with task management:

• Get a bird’s eye view of all the projects in the Kanban Board
• View complete information of task in Table View
• Use calendar view for capacity planning
• Track task progress, set dependencies, and make changes as per the priorities in the Gantt view

5. Save Time on Recurring Tasks Using Automated Tasks

Your tasks will be created automatically using the ProofHub Recurring Tasks feature. This saves plenty of time and effort in creating and assigning repetitive tasks. All you have to do is set the repeat schedule and ProofHub’s automated task feature will create tasks for you and notify all the team members who are assigned the task.

6. Get rid of threaded conversations with real-time communication 

There is no need to go through the pain and wasted hours of finding messages through threaded conversations. One skipped message and your project is in jeopardy. With ProofHub’s built-in chat feature, you can instantly connect with your team members in real-time. Rather than replying to the emails and creating a long thread, you can directly ask queries on the chat and keep the email for important communication only. 

If you want the attention of a specific team member on a task, you can use inline task comments which keep everyone on the same page and hold people accountable. Once you get used to it, you may even replace the emails for quick communication completely.      

Read more: 7 Reasons to Replace Emails With Management Software 

7. Enhance tool functionality using integration with other tech stack

ProofHub brings convenience and saves time by smoothly integrating with other tech stacks including but not limited to Gmail, Google Drive, and Calendar to help you with task management. Thus, if you add any task in ProofHub, you will get a Gmail notification. If you want to share files, you can share them directly from Google Drive. If you schedule tasks, they will be added to your Google Calendar.       

Tips for effective email organization and prioritization

If you do not organize your emails effectively, even the best tool cannot help you much. Therefore, it is always best to invest some time in email organization. It helps you save time, keep your inbox sorted, allows you to respond to emails quickly, and find the information from your inbox easily.     

It is often said Inbox Zero is the best inbox where there is no pending email. Here are some simple tips that can help you with effective email organization and prioritization:

• Categorize emails using folders and labels: Create folders or use labels to sort your emails into categories based on the sender, type of email, or priority. It will help you organize your inbox and find emails quickly.

• Use filters or rules for incoming emails: Set up filters or use rules to specify into which category an incoming email should go. This will help you respond to your emails swiftly.

• Delete emails: Even if your inbox is well-sorted and organized, it is always a good idea to delete the emails you do not want. It will make it easy to find emails and declutter your inbox.            

• Separate work emails from personal emails: Create separate accounts for work emails and personal emails. It will limit the messages you have to deal with and avoid confusion.  

• Unsubscribe for unwanted emails: Unwanted emails can quickly overwhelm your inbox and make it difficult to find important messages. The best way to avoid unwanted emails is to unsubscribe them.  

Conclusion 

An average working professional spends 28% of their work time on email, and out of that, a lot of time is wasted due to the lack of capabilities of email inboxes. Thus, using an email task management system to empower your email is a great consideration. It can help you save hours of productivity in a year, make it easy to manage and track tasks, and streamline team communication.

You just need to pay attention to two things: follow the right practices of email task management and choose the right tool that empowers you.

ProofHub offers you a wide range of features that address all the aspects of email task management and team collaboration. It has all you need to effectively manage your tasks, emails, and team communication.

See it in action, and Book your demo of ProofHub to organize your email inbox for free.

Email Task Management FAQs

How can e-mail task management help me be more productive?

Email task management can help you be more productive by organizing your tasks, prioritizing them, and providing reminders to complete them on time.

What are some common email task management pitfalls and how can I avoid them?

Common pitfalls: Overwhelming inbox, difficulty in prioritizing tasks, and missing important emails. Organize folders, labels, priorities, and regular email management scheduling to avoid them.

What are some popular email task management tools and software?

Some popular email task management tools and software include ProofHub, Todoist, Trello, Microsoft To Do, and Google Tasks.

How can I collaborate with my team using email task management?

You can collaborate with your team using email task management by assigning tasks, sharing notes and files, and setting deadlines.

What are some security and privacy considerations to keep in mind when managing tasks via email?

Security measures for email task management include using strong passwords, avoiding public Wi-Fi, encrypting data, and enabling two-factor authentication.