Superhuman: A Review for Pastors

Email overwhelms me.

I’ve tried everything. I tried asking an assistant to process my emails. I’ve used plugins. I’ve tried batching my emails. Up until now, nothing has worked.

This bothers me. I don’t want to spend my life reacting to emails, but as one of my friends (a pastor) points out, it’s reasonable for people to expect a response, ordinarily, to their emails within 24 hours. Jen Pollock Michel wrote about answering emails recently: “answering texts, emails, and direct-contact messages (from Slack and other apps) is one of the ways that we follow the biblical commandment to ‘love our neighbors as ourselves.’” Responding to emails is an act of love.

Email overwhelms me, but I’ve found a solution that’s helped.

The Right Tool

The right tool makes all the difference, not just with home repairs, but for things like email too.

I first heard about Superhuman from a blog. I signed up for the waitlist but never made it to the top. It’s a slick piece of marketing. Instead of them begging you to sign up, you end up begging them for a chance to use their service.

I finally got in (sort of) through a referral. By in, I mean that I reached the screening stage: they send a questionnaire to find out of you are a good fit for their service. I made it through and scheduled an interview as the next step.

Superhuman is known for their onboarding process. I met with one of their representatives online. She asked me about my workflow, took a look at my inboxes, and gave me some tips to get started. For the next month, I received daily emails with tips on how to use the service.

I thought I would give it a try. I wasn’t sure if I would keep it or not, but now it’s hard to imagine canceling.

It’s worked for me for a few reasons:

• The speed — The app is blazingly fast. The response time is so quick that using other mail apps, or even my browser, seems like I’m stuck in low gear.
• The keyboard shortcuts — I’ve never mastered keyboard shortcuts. Superhuman pushes you in this direction, though. Now that I’m using my keyboard only to process emails, I can process my inbox faster than ever before.
• The features — I can schedule an email to send later. I can sort my inbox into important and other emails. I can remove an email from my inbox until I get back to my computer or until a certain date or time. I can remind myself of an email if someone doesn’t respond. It works offline. You can view information about the person you are emailing on the sidebar, along with your calendar. All of these features are available with other plugins and services, but they work together so well within Superhuman.

It’s also satisfying to see beautiful screens rewarding you for hitting inbox zero.

The Downsides

Superhuman has two downsides:

• It only works with Google email services like GMail and GMail for Business.
• It costs $30 a month.

I use Gmail, so the first downside doesn’t matter to me. So far, the $30/month has been worth it for me.

If you don’t struggle with email, you probably don’t need Superhuman. If you constantly feel overwhelmed by email, this is the first service I’ve found that’s made a difference. It’s almost turned email into something fun.

This is not a sponsored post. I don’t get any referral fees for recommending Superhuman. It may not even be a good fit for you. I just like it.

If you want to skip the waitlist, send me an email. I’ll set you up with a referral.