God I love Gmail.  Here are my favorite lab features that I can’t live without.

1. Undo Send

Gmail will give you 3 seconds to undo an email.  A total life saver. I always catch myself sending emails without proofreading.

2. Don’t Forget Bob

Gmail will auto suggest people you might have left out in an email.  With one click you can insert them in.  This is awesome for group emails.

3. Canned Responses

If you send the same email replies over and over again.  You can save it the first time you write it and then send that same message over and over again in one click.  This is great for customer support, sending out driving instructions, entering in different footers, etc.

4. Forgotten Attachment Detector

Gmail will let you know if any form of the word “Attach” is in your email and nothing is attached.  I feel like a complete idiot when I write “checkout the attached document” in my email and then I forget to actually attach the document.

5. Sender Time Zone

This is awesome.  It tells you what time it currently is at the senders time zone.  Comes in handy when you are taking to people abroad.  You can estimate if you should expect a reply or not.

You can turn on these Gmail Lab features by clicking on “Settings” and then the “Labs” tab.

I probably spend 5 hours on the phone everyday. My entire team is remotely located and I keep in touch with all of them on a daily basis with my cell phone.

I get distracted easily when I’m talking on the phone and I notice an email pop up or an instant message get sent out. I then space out for a minute or so focusing on the email/IM and I totally lose all focus in the conversation and have to ask them to repeat what they just said (looking like a complete idiot).

I can also easily notice when someone else isn’t paying attention on the phone. Easy ways to identify this happening:
– Long pauses before replying to you
– Don’t get the “Yes”, “Ok”, “I see”, “uh huh” feedback in the conversation
– They ask you to repeat stuff you just said
– You can hear typing in the background

My new strategy is to simply turn off my monitor when I get a phone call. It works every time.

Just ask me if I want something to drink OR give me a glass of water. I will feel super guilty that I am using your free wifi and buy something.

I wonder how I can do this for customers on the Flying Cart free plan.
– Give them a call/email saying “Hey I see that you are enjoying our free services. I was wondering if I could help you out at all?”
– Offer them a free month of the standard package
– We already send them an email after 14 days of opening a store – maybe send them an email every 60 days. “Yo! You signed up for a store 2 months ago. Lets get your business rocking together – let me help you. My first question is what are you selling?”

Thanks for Cafe Neo for teaching me this amazing lesson.