Ever get that ding on your phone that alerts you that there’s a new email in your inbox? We know firsthand how hard they are to ignore. You start to wonder who it’s from and what that person wants, and before you know it, you’re distracted by the latest sale at your favorite store. Thirty minutes later you realize you were in the middle of something before you got interrupted. #Whoops!

In most cases, these types of interruptions can be entirely prevented by either keeping your phone shut off or notifications to a minimum, but there’s another tool we feel you should know about: Boomerang! It’s one of our favorite tools for Gmail, and in this blog post, we take you through all the reasons why we feel you should add this little extension to your productivity suite! Enjoy!

Those Never-Ending Email Threads

Checking, sending email, deleting, and archiving your email is a daunting task to stay on top of, especially if you have plenty of other things going on in life. There are more emails than we know what to do with, and on top of it, we have to deal with email threads that never end. How to manage it all? Well, you’re in luck because you’re about to learn about one of our favorite email tools – Boomerang. This is one of those little tools that, once you have used it for a while, you wonder how you ever lived without it. Promise.

What is “Boomerang” for Gmail?

Boomerang is a Mozilla Firefox/Google Chrome plug-in and an email scheduling tool that works with your Gmail or Outlook inbox to make your life just a little bit easier. It lets you pause your inbox, track messages, and schedule emails to go out on a certain day. It even alerts you if you forget to respond to emails, so no more “whoops, I forgot to reply” realizations on a day when something’s due. In short, Boomerang is kicks up your gmail features a notch. Most recently the team behind the extension added an AI voice assistant, which can draft and respond to emails, reschedule meetings, and tell you what meetings you have coming up. #Amazing. It’s still being perfected so it’s not flawless yet, but if you’re someone who doesn’t have all day to sift through emails then Boomerang is a great tool.

How Much Does Boomerang Cost?

You can use Boomerang for Gmail with Chrome, Safari, FireFox, Opera, and Edge, and it also works with Outlook on any Microsoft platform. The basic version is free, but you can also opt for a Personal version ($4.99/month), a Pro version ($14.99), or a Premium version ($49.99/month). You may be thinking that a Pro or Premium version is overkill, but consider calculating how many hours of productivity it would save you. Perhaps the opportunity cost is worth it? You can see all the options and included features on their subscriptions page here!

How We Use Boomerang

For a little productivity inspiration, here are a few different ways you could use Boomerang:

1. Pause Your Inbox

Wanna check your email just once a day? Make this easy by turning on Inbox Pause!

This handy feature lets you stop new emails from entering your inbox until you’re ready, so you can focus on other things and escape those annoying notifications. If you turn on the Auto-Responder, this will lets others know that you’re not answering email for a while so that instant-reply expectation is managed. If you want to bring your messages in on a set schedule, you can do that, and if you need to make a few exceptions, you can do that too!

2. Schedule Yearly Messages All at Once

Pick a day, grab your calendar, and schedule all of your “Happy Birthday” and Holiday email all at once. Copy and paste your drafts, then personalize and schedule the message to go out on the correct day! No more belated wishes! If you’re horrible with dates or just want to be known as the favorite aunt who never forgets a birthday, this is your secret weapon!

3. Remember Follow-Ups

Just like with the birthday emails, it’s nice to schedule follow-up messages to go out on specific days after important events. Let’s say, for example, that you’ve had a job interview and want to send a “thank you” follow up; well, Boomerang will make that simple for you. Sending a message immediately after could be perceived as a little weird, but you also don’t want to forget, so instead you can write it immediately, and then have Boomerang send it a few days later. When there are a million things to do, it’s easy to let those small mistakes slip through the cracks, but with Boomerang that won’t happen.

4. Draft Better Emails

To help your professionalism shine through just a little bit brighter, Boomerang also helps you draft better email messages. Using AI technology, the Assistant on the right hand side shows you how to polish your draft in regards to subject length, word count, question count, reading level, positivity, politeness, subjectivity, and how likely you are to receive a response. This is good news for all of us! Who doesn’t want to receive a response, right? I mean, that’s usually the whole point of sending it in the first place.

Getting Boomerang

To install Boomerang, just visit the App store or the Boomerang website to download the email client. If you’ve already downloaded other apps, you already know how this works – just hit “get” and it’ll begin installing. If you run into any issues, the good folks who make the app have an FAQ page on how to install and use it right here.

Boomerang automatically signs off your emails with the phrase “Sent with love using Boomerang” when you first start using it. That means that anyone you send an email to will see that phrase at the bottom of your email. This function can be turned off with a click in the settings, and perhaps that’s best – just so that the receiver doesn’t perceive it as “robotic.” It is a little robotic, but it will help you keep your sanity and decrease your stress levels while still remembering everything.

Try Some Technology On

I hope this post gives you a good overview of Boomerang. Sometimes these things can be intimidating and we try hard on this blog to make it less intimidating. Plug-in, Apps, and software don’t have to be scary. I promise that once you start taking advantage of all these useful digital tools, your life will become much more organized. That should at least give you some peace of mind.

Have you tried Boomerang?

Let us know how you liked it in the comments below!