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43Folders.com is Merlin Mann’s website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.

Sending short email messages from within Quicksilver

I’ve recently gotten in the habit of using the email subject line alone to convey a short message. The old-school best practice of geeks in this matter is to end a self-sufficient subject with (EOM), which stands for, you guessed it, “end of message.”

Neat trick here for Quicksilver users to dash off an EOM-type email from right inside the app. (Yes, I assume this requires the Mail and Address Book plugins, possibly others, yadda yadda yadda).

  1. Invoke Quicksilver (usu. CTRL-Spacebar)
  2. Hit . (period key) to get the variable input field
  3. Type a short EOM-style message
    • Try “My 43F test message (EOM)
  4. Tab to the second pane
  5. Type, say, dir until you get “Email to...(Send Directly)
  6. Tab to the third pane
  7. Type until your own Address Book entry appears
    • Optionally right-arrow in to select the specific (non-default) email address you want to send to.
  8. Hit Return

If everything is configured right, this should send an email with the contents of step 3 as both the subject and the body of the message. Of course, this would also work really well with Andrew’s Gmail To-do and Journal system among many other things, but I love it especially as way to quickly dash off a super-efficient email without changing modes. And most recipients love the brevity, so everybody wins.

About Merlin

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Bio

Merlin Mann is an independent writer, speaker, and broadcaster. He’s best known for being the guy who created the website you’re reading right now. He lives in San Francisco, does lots of public speaking, and helps make cool things like You Look Nice Today, MacBreak Weekly and Kung Fu Grippe. Also? He’s writing this book, he lives with this face, he suffers from this hair, he answers these questions, and he’s had this life. So far.

Merlin’s favorite thing he’s written in the past few years is a short essay entitled, “Better.”

 
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Inbox Zero

The original 43 Folders series looking at the skills, tools, and attitude needed to empty your email inbox — and then keep it that way. Don’t miss the free video of Merlin’s Inbox Zero presentation.

Making Time

3-part series on attention management for artists and makers. Read Bad Correspondence, The Job You Think You Have, and One Clear Line.