Google Tasks For GMail And iPhone

GTD or Gettings Things Done is a mantra that’s spread around the world since David Allen’s Book by the same name came out in 2002. And with increasing pressures in our lives both personally and professionally we need all the help we can get.

With GTD we’ve seen a flurry of software pop up that says it can help us be more productive, stay on target, and accomplish things and who doesn’t want that? There is Remember the Milk, Things, OmniFocus, and any number of other web sites and applications that in different ways can help us getting things done.

One of the latest additions to this growing number of solutions is actually to be found in GMail. Since so many of us use GMail this is, despite its simplicity, one of the more interesting alternatives that have appeared recently.

You have to go to Settings in your GMail account, then click the Labs tab, and enable Tasks. You’ll find a link over on the left for Tasks. The interface is not the greatest but I’m sure it’s something Google is working on. On the iPhone side however, things are better. There is a great iPhone interface for GMail Tasks, just browse to gmail.com/tasks with Safari on your iPhone or iPod touch.

Google Tasks is still a very basic system. You can create lists, like “Home”, “Office”, Project XYZ”, etc. and then put tasks in those lists. When you’re finished with a task you mark it as completed, that’s it. For true GTD-fans this is probably not enough functionality but for me it’s okay for now.

One thing I really like about GMail Tasks is how easy it is to turn an email into a task. When you have an email open in GMail, click the “More” button and in the drop down menu click on “Add to Tasks”. A task is added using the subject line of the email and it also adds a link to the email. What I typically do after adding an email to tasks is to Archive it so it’s out of the inbox.

Something I would like to see is integration with Google Calendar and Google Docs. When I add a task I’d like to be able to put a date on it and if the task relates to any documents I’d like a link to them in Google Docs. These sorts of systems can always be expanded and I’ll keep on looking for the one that fits me the best but for now I’m pretty happy with GMail Tasks.