(HEY) Email Screener
The HEY screener is probably one of the biggest life improvements introduced in the last two years (for productivity) that I can’t live without anymore.
Once you experience it, you can’t go back to a normal email client. It’s horrific whenever I see others’ inboxes 😱. The screener gives you emails you actually want, and only them!
# What’s an email screener?
This was invented by the HEY email client and the 37Signals team, and they explain it like this:
You screen your calls, so why can’t you screen your emails? With HEY, you can. HEY puts you in complete control of who’s allowed to email you. The first time someone emails you, you get to decide if you want to hear from them again.
# Alternative Implementations
Because I couldn’t live without it, but I wanted to have a terminal email client, I had to rebuild it inside Neomutt, and then my own email client:
- HEY-Screener in (Neo)Mutt
- Neomd: My own TUI email client that I use every day, comes with HEY screener built in.
# Superhuman
I’d say blocking in Superhuman or other email clients is technically the same, but not emotionally. Because you will see it and you need to do something with it. If it’s screened out by default, it can’t stay in your subconscious. It’s very powerful. Instead of having an open to-do list that everyone can add to, you get to choose who can add 🙂.
# Further Reads
- My essay against Email - before I had the HEY screener: Email, and the way we (should) communicate at work | ssp.sh
- Terminal-based Email Clients
Origin: HEY-Screener in (Neo)Mutt