Install KIT Beta for Gmail

Intro: How KIT works

If you've already watched this video, skip over to step 1 below.

Step 1: Sending Requests

KIT keeps track of your work and other’s work in your rightbar. (show image here)

To get work items into KIT, it all starts in the compose window.

As you type an email, KIT is watching your emails for your “call to action” -- the part of the email where you make clear to your recipient what you want or will do for them.

Call to actions look like this:

• Could you…
• Please…
• I will...

Once it finds your “call to action”, it highlights it. Blue for a promise and pink for a request.

Hover over the highlighted text and select the person the call to action is for.

Then, when you send the email, it’ll be tracked for you in your rightbar.

Go ahead and try it!

Note: KIT watches for direct, courteous language. Indirect verbiage and commands are not caught.

A way to get around the “call-to-action detection” for a request is to begin a sentence with the “@” symbol and start typing the name of the person you are asking something to do. The following sentence will be detected as a request.

Step 2: Accepting and Completing

If someone else has KIT and they send you a request, it will automatically go into your “My Work” list. From there, you can click on it to get to the email without having to go through your inbox to find it. You can click on “accept” if you want to do it, or “decline” if you don’t.

Once you’re done with something on your “My Work” list, make sure to complete it! You can complete when you’re replying to the email thread, which will put a “receipt” in the email indicating that it’s been completed. Or, you can use the “quick complete” option in the rightbar to send out a quick email to the person letting them know it’s done.

If you sent out a promise, you have the option of completing it without sending a note.

Step 3: Using the lists

The KIT lists -- “My Work” and “Other’s Work” -- keep you from having to remember everything yourself.

Each KIT tag is comprised of who it’s for, and what it is that’s being done.

It’s automatically organized by person and date. You can, very quickly, go through the items and see what needs to be done next, or what you need to follow up with.

If you’re in your “other’s work” list and someone else completed something, but either forgot to mark it complete or doesn’t have KIT to mark it complete, you can close the request so it’s off your list.

Sometimes you’ll see a request or promise that reads: “Please do this” or “I’ll do this by tomorrow”. These require you to still go into the email to understand what’s being asked, so next time you write out your email be a bit more descriptive in your request. It’ll help you and your recipient out.