Category: Productivity

More fun with Gmail add-ons

Photo by Stephen Phillips - Hostreviews.co.uk on Unsplash

I use Google Workspace to run my email and use Google Docs often for personal projects and to write my contributions for Opensource.com.

Every so often, I go back to take a spin through the Google Workspace Marketplace to see the latest and greatest add-ons available. Google has taken some positive steps when Google Workspace was still called Google Apps to offer add-ons that enable simple code-free integrations between their applications such as Gmail and third-party SaaS applications.

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3 things I miss about writing in a public place

I used to have a tradition that I called Saturday writing day. These Saturdays got their start at the gym. I’d then shower at the gym then head over to the Mosaic District for a nice big breakfast and then find a spot to spend my day writing. I wrote many of my past articles this way.

Here’s what I miss about writing in a public place:

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The joy of a fresh email account

Increasingly, over the past few months, my personal email — a Gmail account — I’ve had since the beginning is almost useless due to spam. Combined with my lingering issues over the Gmail UI, I reconsidered and got myself a Hey.com account. It still has the new email account smell.

Here are some of the joys I’m rediscovering with a fresh email account:

It’s for personal email only

Over the years, my Gmail and willkelly.com emails became intermingled, mostly when I was a freelance writer. Since day 1, I use my Hey.com for only personal email. It’s not for pitches. It’s not for my opensource.com contributions either.

I can track important personal email

Recently, I used my Hey.com email to sign my Mom up for her Covid vaccination. Using a clean email account gave me confidence that these most important emails wouldn’t get lost in the spam repository that my personal Gmail account has become.

Hey.com does break new ground in email

I went back and forth over whether to purchase a Hey.com email account. The email experience has long been ruined for me because of spam. While I didn’t quite get the filtering features during my Hey.com trial, I’ve come to appreciate them after seeing them in action.
Hey.com does restrict you to their email client, which feels like a step backward somehow. The bright spot is that the Hey.com user interface is relatively novel, with many of the same design sensibilities I enjoy using Basecamp.