I’ve outsourced my brain to the cloud.
To be more specific, I’ve given up trying to remember things, relying instead on Google and its Gmail service to keep track of my entire life.
Last month I wrote about Slack, a so-called email killer. But my email account is more than a place to exchange messages with other people. I keep everything there, from important documents to meeting notes to grocery lists. And while there are slick, elegant apps to handle the many facets of my day, it’s easier for me to just send myself everything by email.
If you’re like me, there’s a brilliantly simple tool that can transform your inbox into a to-do and reminder tool. It’s called FollowUpThen, and even better, its basic features are completely free.
FollowUpThen isn’t an app. It’s not even an email service provider. It works with the email account you already have and use every day. And it’s as good at helping you at work as it is at home.
Here’s how it works. Let’s say your friend will be on vacation for 10 days, and you want to remember to invite her out to drinks when she gets back. Just send an email to 10days@ followupthen.com. Ten days later that email comes back to you automatically. You can put whatever you want in the subject or body of the message, even if it’s just “Call Beth-Ann.”
Trying to close a sale, but your customer emails you to say they’re too busy and to try again in three months? Forward their reply to 3months@followupthen.com. Three months later their reply is back at the top of your inbox.
FollowUpThen works with minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years. So your reminder to pick up dinner can be sent to 430pm@ followupthen.com, and your reminder to renew your passport can be sent to 6years@followupthen.com. (The service has been around since 2010.)
FollowUpThen also works with dates. Do you always forget to renew your car registration each August? Just send a message to august1@followupthen.com. Got an email coupon for a “Christmas in July” sale that starts on the 20th? Forward the coupon to july20@followupthen.com.
Days of the week and even terms like “tomorrow” work. And recurring reminders are also supported with the word “every.” Just send those yoga class details to everywed630pm@followup then.com.
FollowUpThen is also good at sharing. If you and your brother are making plans to see a movie in two weeks, you can copy, or CC, 2weeks@followupthen.com in your message to him, and you both will get the reminder when the time comes. But if you want to attach a private reminder to an email that you’re sending, just blind-copy, or BCC, followupthen.com instead.
It’s devilishly simple. And you can see how FollowUpThen can help you keep a tidy — if not completely empty — inbox. If it’s a message you can’t deal with now, you can effectively hit the snooze button on it and have FollowUpThen bring it back to the surface later.
If you really fall in love with the service, paid plans range from $2 to $9 month for additional features, from more recurring reminders (five per month are free) to support for attachments or SMS reminders (if you need even more ways to be reminded). My favorite premium feature is a calendar feed that I can add to my phone so all my FollowUpThen reminders also appear on my main calendar.
Finally, if the domain name followupthen.com is too long to type all the time, the company offers a shorter version that’s easy to remember, at least for Hawaii residents: fut.io. Remind yourself to read my next column by sending a message to july30@fut.io!
Ryan Ozawa is communications director for local tech company Hawaii Information Service, and a lifelong technologist. You can follow him on Instagram and Twitter at @hawaii.
