Email Productivity Tip: Sending without Checking

Checking email can be a big distraction when I just want to send an email and move on. If I have new unread e-mails, I may not want to know about them until after I've finished focusing on sending out a new message.

Thankfully, a number of email apps support opening the "Compose Message" window without first opening the Inbox.

On mobile, you may be able to long-press the launch icon for an email app to surface additional options, like "New Message". Gmail and Apple Messages on iOS support this, for example.

Web apps often support an option for this, too with a direct URL. Gmail offers this link which you can bookmark:

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#compose

And Fastmail has such a link you can bookmark as well

https://app.fastmail.com/mail/Inbox/compose

If you want to find the URL for your web app, click on the Compose or New Message button and see how the URL changes. Often bookmarking the resulting page will do.

Check to see if your own email apps supports this option. Then the next time you want to send a message without the risk if distraction the option will be there for you to stay focused. ✨