I emailed notes to the future 253 times over the past two years, here's what I learned

I've just looked back at every email I've received from followupthen.com. I was surprised to see 253 results, with the first coming back over two years ago! I hadn't realised how a free tool that sends emails back to you has been a crucial part of my productivity system.

As I process my inbox, I sometimes encounter items that don't have any immediate actions necessary or possible. Like when I need to wait a couple of days before filling in an application or I need some time to sit on an idea before writing it up. Recently, I've been sending these items to Follow Up Then, a service that sends me an email after some time has passed. Anything you send to 3days@followupthen.com gets sent back to you in three days.

Here are some of the emails I've received from Follow Up Then (I'm a uni student with a part-time software development job):

• "Don't forget to apply for your university accommodation in one week's time."
• "Unsubscribe from this trial before it ends!"
• "Please email back over term time." No problem, cc: october@fut.io
• "Renew your Railcard when it expires in a few months."
• My professor promised he'd release answers for a problem sheet in a week, and I wanted to remember to check my answers against the correct ones to learn from my mistakes (I made many)
• I had coursework due in a few days but wanted to sleep on my answers before submitting it. "Submit coursework now that you've slept on it"
• I set myself a yearly theme and didn't want to forget to do so next year.
• I rented an Arduino from my school department and had to return it in a few months.
• I wanted to sign up for a society once exam pressure died down (mountaineering!)
• I got an email that included information on what to do when I depart my accommodation, which was happening in one week: oneweek@fut.io
• I reached out to an old colleague on Linkedin and wanted to ensure I'd follow up in a few days if he didn't respond, bcc: 3days@fut.io
• I got an out-of-office email and wanted to send a follow-up when they returned.
• "Set up revision schedule." a few weeks before exams start.
• "Renew passport" sent to 10years@fut.io
• "I'll do that when my exams are over" 7days@fut.io
• "Call when X is open after holidays" jan@fut.io

These projects are only actionable on a specified date in the future. They're different from projects with a due date but also different from projects that have no date at all ("someday" projects). The project "finish implementation of X by wednesday" would not fit into FollowUpThen, nor would "learn Russian", which has no specified start date.

These projects are so crucial that not addressing them would leave me feeling like there's an 'open loop'. Follow Up Then closes the loop for me.

The gods of productivity deal with "incubating" projects by keeping them out of sight, out of mind, until their start date arrives. For example, David Allen (last I heard) uses 43 folders to manage these incubating projects. He can send messages to himself in the future, reminding him to start the projects without bulking up his day-to-day system. However, even Allen acknowledges that this approach has limitations, such as being confined to the physical realm.

Follow Up Then achieves that same goal:

• I can send notes for the future to start up a project when its time comes.
• I only have to view or think about these notes for the future once their time comes.

I have yet to find another system that is as seamless as Follow Up Then for these goals. Please email me if you have found one!

These incubating projects come up all the time. Next time you notice one, try out FollowUpThen and let me know how it went!