Have Bots email you numbered approvals you can answer from y

How this helps you

Approvals take seconds from your phone, so you stop being the bottleneck.

✦ Try it

When you need my approval, email me from your own address. Subject: [product] | [type] | [N] need you. Number each item, one line each, with a link to the work. End with how to reply, like "1 approve, 2 change: ...". Accept my short numbered replies and carry on.

Fill in: [product] and [type] are your labels (for example KPI pulse, Experiment, Tasks). [N] is how many items need you.

What they did

Brian Casel says your Bots can only be as productive as you are at managing them, so he designed what comes back to him, not just the instructions going out. Each Bot has its own email address (he set them up with AgentMail on his domain before Bots could claim their own). Bots send four kinds of email: a KPI pulse for the whole portfolio, a monthly experiment email with bets A, B and C, task emails that say how many items need him, and a quarterly strategy review. Each has a set subject line convention. In a task email the items are numbered, so he replies "1 approve, 2 approve, 3 I have a question" from his iPhone, and the Bot carries on. He iterated on the format when emails got too long to process.

Who it's for: People who manage several Bots and live in their inbox more than in chats.

Before you start

A Bot with an email address it can send from (see the related tip on claiming one).
A few jobs that regularly need your yes or no.

How to try it

List the kinds of update you want, and cap it at a few types.
Agree a subject line pattern for each, with the product and type in it.
Ask for numbered items and a line on how to reply.
Ask the Bot to accept short numbered replies.
After a week, cut anything you skimmed past.

What to expect

An email with a clear subject and three numbered items; you reply in one line and get a short confirmation back.

Common mistakes

Letting every Bot invent its own format. Fix the types and subject lines.
Long paragraphs per item. Brian cut his emails down when they got hard to process.

Related tips

Give your Bot its own email address: Ask your Bot to claim an address so you can forward or CC it, and so it can sign up for accounts itself.
Start each day with an approvals prompt, end it with a night prompt: Two short daily questions that get your Bot to find work you forgot about.
Forward new leads to your Bot's inbox: A Gmail filter forwards leads to a tagged Bot address; a routine on that tag researches each one before you reply.