How I use Superhuman in venture capital
I am an ‘Inbox Zero’ person. I feel very uncomfortable with a full inbox that may contain matters needing attention.
Superhuman is how I never have that feeling.
#1 — Triage 50 emails in 2 minutes
A common experience for me is having a few back-to-back meetings and coming out with 50 new emails. It can be demoralising. With Superhuman, I can triage this very quickly. Here’s what I do. Go to the top of the list and hit one of these keyboard shortcuts for each message.
e — Mark the message as DONE. No action (including a long read) is required from me.
j — Move to the next message. I need to do something now, but I will finish the triage first.
h — Move to another time/place. See #2.
Ctrl u — One-click unsubscribe. This one feels good and stops the inbox creep of hundreds of email subscriptions.
#2 — Move work to a time that you can act
Triaging with h key is how to separate processing your inbox and doing the work.
Type the time in your day when you want to spend time doing the work for each email. e.g. ‘10am’ or ‘5pm on Sunday’
Use the Last Used option to do this for each email.
The mobile app has an option I use all the time. On Desktop will remove the email until you get back to your big keyboard.
#3 — Be the best version of yourself with snippets
Pressing the ‘;’ key brings up a list of snippets that I use to automate quality communications.
As well as frequently-used text like addresses and sign-offs, I use snippets to structure more complex communications.
Pitch readiness: if founders are only going to get an hour with us, I like to give them some notes on how to get the most out of it. This should be the primary experience and not inconsistent because I am busy.
No time to meet: I hate to send these emails because I want to help everyone. But if there is no time, there is no time. Easy to procrastinate and leave open loops. I have some frameworks that help me do this well and still find a way to help in most cases.
Introductions: VCs do this a lot. I have templates to make the best of each person.
Reason for ‘No’: Templates force me to be detailed and respectful in my response.
Meeting setup: A polite wrapper around my Calendly links to set up a meeting quickly. I have different links for meetings, including when I need to squeeze someone in.
#4 — Accept introductions in 1 minute
As a VC, I am also frequently introduced to other people by my network. Pressing Cmd — Shift — i on an open email quickly moves the sender to BCC and adds the opening sentence, “Thanks [sender]! (to BCC).
Combine this with a snippet for Meeting Setup, and that job is done in seconds.
#5 — Send + Done
When I am ready to send an email, I press Shift — Cmd — Enter, and the email is sent AND marked as DONE. Wow, that feels good.
After that moment, you will frequently see the message: You’ve hit Inbox Zero x weeks in a row! 🔥
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