Email has become more like a habitat than an application. It is used for a wide range of tasks such as information management and for coordination and collaboration in organizations. Our research shows that email is the place in which a great deal of work is received and delegated and is a growing portal for access to online publications and information services. It has become the place where PC users spend much if not most of their workdays (the application is always on, and is often the focus of attention). This, and the burgeoning quantities of messages and attachments that email delivers to people each day, has led users to co-opt it as a personal information management (PIM) tool. In fact this simply follows from what we have found to be a common tendency of knowledge workers, which is to embed personal information management directly into their favorite workspaces.

Despite the fact that email has come to play a central role in task management, email tool features have remained relatively static in recent years, lagging behind users' evolving practices. To bridge this gap, we designed the Taskmaster system. TaskMaster is a fundamental move away from message-centric email tools: it recasts email as task management by embedding task-centric resources directly in the client. User studies conducted with “live” email data revealed the value of a task-centric approach to email system design and its potential benefits for overloaded users.

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