Assign Tasks via E-mail, Get Automatic Follow-Up

A lot of the e-mail I send are simple to-dos: I assign, I delegate, I request. And after I click Send, I typically trust the recipient to follow up in a timely manner. Indeed, sometimes I sort of forget I even made a request at all, hoping that a reply will come back to jog my memory and get the task done on time. I could be more efficient, but it would require time and effort I don't really have. Here's a solution that requires neither.

Pleasenotify.me is a free, no-registration service that lets you send a tasking to someone via e-mail. Both of you get a copy of the initial message, as well as daily reminders beginning the day the task was due until the recipient marks it as complete.

The magic of pleasenotify.me is in its simplicity: The sparse Web page requires only that you enter the recipient and your own e-mail address, the task/message, and the due date. And then the service does exactly what it promises.

This service is not entirely unlike alternatives like IssueBurner and FollowUpThen, but pleasenotify.me is flat out the simplest and easiest to use e-mail-task-tracking service I've yet encountered. In fact, it might be too simple; since there's no need to register or validate your own e-mail address, it seems to me that it's easy to fling task spam at people anonymously -- and they'll get pinged daily with reminders unless or until they click a link to mark the task complete.

The potential for malicious spam aside, pleasenotify.me looks like a fast and easy way to assign tasks via e-mail and trust that it'll get done on time.