Achieve Zero Unread Mail with the Email Game

Under normal circumstances, we tend to leave a few emails unread in our inbox so that we can later work on them. But often we forget them and the unread list keeps on increasing. Unimportant/Boring/Spam mail also results in an ever-increasing count and this adds to the frustrating experience. The Email Game promises to clear your inbox effortlessly and achieve the magic zero figure.

The Email game applies gameplay mechanics to change your behavior in your work. It tries to make the emailing process more fun by rewarding points and setting timelines to take action on emails.

After entering your email address, you will have to authorize the application to read your emails. You will be then presented with 30 recent emails on which you have to take action as soon as possible to gather points. You will have to take one of the actions on every single mail: Reply, Label, Boomerang, Skip, Archive, or Delete. Boomerang is a nifty feature, that skips the mail for now, but it will come again at whatever time you want. The more time you take to act on a mail, the more points you lose. When replying, by default, you get only 3 minutes, but then you can easily extend this time in case you want to write a longer mail.

The application creators claim that you will be 30% faster in handling your mail. Nonetheless, this fun game develops good email habits and gives peace of mind. You will be satisfied that you have not even left a single mail unread.

The Email Game is completely free for Gmail or Google Apps accounts. Other worthy alternatives are 0boxer and InboxScore which also use gaming tactics to motivate you. If you are not comfortable sharing your account with third parties, then you can of course try the priority inbox or new inbox style for reducing email clutter.

Note: The Email Game adds a link to itself when you reply to any mail. You can easily remove it by changing the email signature from the games settings page.