I was recently searching on the exact syntax to add Actions and/or to email them so they’ll arrive , with or without notes in the Inbox or in a Project in Nozbe.

On the Nozbe blog there were several posts that refer to each other and my purpose is to create this one page overview with everything you need to know when sending email to Nozbe. Since GTD is also about having an ubiquitous capturing tool, this is the ubiquitous Email to Nozbe page.

So, here is my overview of everything you need to know when sending emails to Nozbe.

First of all, it’s important to understand the “Nozbe language”

Syntax

The syntax for a (Next)action is simple

Example:
Write a blog post about Email and Nozbe #blog @computer @home on today %30 min !

You just have to follow this syntax :

• #projectname : Add a # sign before the name of the project
• @context : Add a @sign before the context. Multiple contexts can be used.
• dates : write the date in the action like ‘On today’ , ‘ on tomorrow’, ‘next week’, ‘on June 18”. Nozbe understands these all. If you use a date, you also need to use “on” or “at” before the date. If you use next week or  next month,  you don’t need to use the prefix.

I was recently searching on the exact syntax to add Actions and/or to email them so they’ll arrive , with or without notes in the Inbox or in a Project in Nozbe.

On the Nozbe blog there were several posts that refer to each other and my purpose is to create this one page overview with everything you need to know when sending email to Nozbe. Since GTD is also about having an ubiquitous capturing tool, this is the ubiquitous Email to Nozbe page.

So, here is my overview of everything you need to know when sending emails to Nozbe.

First of all, it’s important to understand the “Nozbe language”

Syntax

The syntax for a (Next)action is simple

Example:
Write a blog post about Email and Nozbe #blog @computer @home on today %30 min !

You just have to follow this syntax :

• #projectname : Add a # sign before the name of the project
• @context : Add a @sign before the context. Multiple contexts can be used.
• dates : write the date in the action like ‘On today’ , ‘ on tomorrow’, ‘next week’, ‘on June 18”. Nozbe understands these all. If you use a date, you also need to use “on” or “at” before the date. If you use next week or  next month,  you don’t need to use the prefix.

• % stands for time needed. Just note % and the time needed (there are limitations. These values can be used :  5min, 15 min, 30 min, 45 min, 1h, 1.5h, 2h, 2.5h, 3h, 4h, 5h, 6h, 7h, 8h)
• Repeat Actions : write down “every …” before the repeating interval. Eg. Every day, every week, every 2 weeks, every month,…
• !: If you want this Action to be the Next Action, just add a ! (exclamation mark)  in the action. The order is not important.

So : Read Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen #become productive ! @home would result in adding the Next Action  Read Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen in project “Become Productive” in the context Home

The special formatting can also be applied when entering a Action with this syntax in the Web Client of when using the email to Nozbe  functionality.

Creating Actions and Notes from your email client to Nozbe

Now that you know the syntax, it’s easy to send emails to Nozbe with your actions.  There is one thing you need to know about your account. On your Settings page, you need to configure a Nickname and a PIN code.

Adding an Action to your inbox or a Project.

Just send an email to Nickname.PIN@nozbe.us. If you want the Action to be created in a certain Project, use this email address : Nickname.PIN.Project@nozbe.us. If your project contains spaces, replace them with an “_” Nickname.PIN.Project_with_spaces@nozbe.us

Adding Actions to multiple projects

Send an email, using the syntax of §1 but as a prefix you must use an asterisk with a space “* “ before each Action.

Adding Notes to a Project

Send an email to Nickname.PIN.Projectname@nozbe.us and the body of the email will be added as a Note. The Subject of the email will be the title.

You can also BCC your Nozbe account to add some reference material to your project. (if you reply to an email for example)

Adding Actions and Notes to a Project

This is really cool. Almost as cool as the Evernote integration :-)

Send an email to Nickname.PIN.Projectname@nozbe.us . The subject of the email will be the title of the note, the body of the email will include everything before the “* “ as a note and will threat the “* “ Actions independent. So, you can send this email to projectname and add Actions to Project2 if you want.

So everything before the first “* “ will be a note to the project as mentioned in the email address, everything after the last “* “ sentence (in this case blahblahblah) will be ignored.

With this post you’ll see how powerful the Nozbe syntax is, and how easy it is to email (Next) Actions and Notes right into your GTD tool.

–Update may 23rd 2010 :

Adding a note to an action

–> will be saved as a comment in your Action in this case:

I have discovered this feature by accident. Well actually last week when i forwarded some e-mails, I noticed that in some cases my Notes weren’t saved as notes in my Projects. When I did some trial and error I discovered this: When you want to add a note, and have just one Action, you have to be careful. When you email the note with that action, the note will be added as a comment on that action. Only when you have more actions in the email, the note will be attached to the Project

–End Update may 23rd 2010 :

Macro designers and Visual Basic for Office developers, start creating some nice scripts, macros, …. :-). And off course, everybody who is not using Microsoft Outlook, but another email client, feel free to develop you add-on for your preferred email client!

• % stands for time needed. Just note % and the time needed (there are limitations. These values can be used :  5min, 15 min, 30 min, 45 min, 1h, 1.5h, 2h, 2.5h, 3h, 4h, 5h, 6h, 7h, 8h)
• Repeat Actions : write down “every …” before the repeating interval. Eg. Every day, every week, every 2 weeks, every month,…
• !: If you want this Action to be the Next Action, just add a ! (exclamation mark)  in the action. The order is not important.

So : Read Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen #become productive ! @home would result in adding the Next Action  Read Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen in project “Become Productive” in the context Home

The special formatting can also be applied when entering a Action with this syntax in the Web Client of when using the email to Nozbe  functionality.

Creating Actions and Notes from your email client to Nozbe

Now that you know the syntax, it’s easy to send emails to Nozbe with your actions.  There is one thing you need to know about your account. On your Settings page, you need to configure a Nickname and a PIN code.

Adding an Action to your inbox or a Project.

Just send an email to Nickname.PIN@nozbe.us. If you want the Action to be created in a certain Project, use this email address : Nickname.PIN.Project@nozbe.us. If your project contains spaces, replace them with an “_” Nickname.PIN.Project_with_spaces@nozbe.us

Adding Actions to multiple projects

Send an email, using the syntax of §1 but as a prefix you must use an asterisk with a space “* “ before each Action.

Adding Notes to a Project

Send an email to Nickname.PIN.Projectname@nozbe.us and the body of the email will be added as a Note. The Subject of the email will be the title.

You can also BCC your Nozbe account to add some reference material to your project. (if you reply to an email for example)

Adding Actions and Notes to a Project

This is really cool. Almost as cool as the Evernote integration :-)

Send an email to Nickname.PIN.Projectname@nozbe.us . The subject of the email will be the title of the note, the body of the email will include everything before the “* “ as a note and will threat the “* “ Actions independent. So, you can send this email to projectname and add Actions to Project2 if you want.

So everything before the first “* “ will be a note to the project as mentioned in the email address, everything after the last “* “ sentence (in this case blahblahblah) will be ignored.

With this post you’ll see how powerful the Nozbe syntax is, and how easy it is to email (Next) Actions and Notes right into your GTD tool.

–Update may 23rd 2010 :

Adding a note to an action

– will be saved as a comment in your Action in this case:

I have discovered this feature by accident. Well actually last week when i forwarded some e-mails, I noticed that in some cases my Notes weren’t saved as notes in my Projects. When I did some trial and error I discovered this: When you want to add a note, and have just one Action, you have to be careful. When you email the note with that action, the note will be added as a comment on that action. Only when you have more actions in the email, the note will be attached to the Project

 –End Update may 23rd 2010 :

Macro designers and Visual Basic for Office developers, start creating some nice scripts, macros, …. :-). And off course, everybody who is not using Microsoft Outlook, but another email client, feel free to develop you add-on for your preferred email client!