Todo list and next action with GMail
Posted by Paolo Mon, 07 May 2007 18:49:00 GMT
I’m kind of getting into GTD during this period, but I find myself very lazy at organizing my stuff. I find it pretty difficult to stick with a specific tool for managing my todo list. Basically I don’t want to use yet another tool, and I feel I would only need a quick and dirty solution to track my todo items and my very next actions.
After trying a bunch of tools I came out with this simple solution: I store todo items in my GMail account. Nothing new or very smart, but it works pretty well. Let’s see how to do it:
- create a new contact named todo whose email is your_account_name+todo@gmail.com (eg:
paolo.dona+todo@gmail.com) - create a label todo
- create a filter that matches to:(your_account_name+todo@gmail.com) and do this: Skip Inbox, Apply label “todo”.
Once you’ve completed these little steps, you can start using your brand new todo-list manager. Oh well, I haven’t told you how to use it yet… so:
How to add a todo item?
Send an email to your todo contact (It’s just yourself!) and it will be automatically archived, this way it doesn’t clutter your inbox.
How to see your pending items?
Click on your todo label inside the left Labels box.
How to mark a todo item as finished?
Delete it. (YOU said it’s finished :-P)
How to mark a todo item as a “next action”?
Star it.
How to see you next actions?
Run this search: label:todo is:starred. Actually I’m using the saved searches greasemonkey script to save this query and have it available as a next actions link just under my Labels box.
Conclusions
This approach is very simple but I see a few key benefits in it:
- Gmail is always open in my browser, I don’t need to keep another window or tab open just to see my todos.
- I can add filters that automatically populate my todo list. For example my Google Calendar reminders get labelled as todo so I can see them in my todo list. The same happens with Basecamp or Highrise todo item/task notifications.
- You can play with labels and easily let todo items belong to projects, locations etc (GTD style).
- You can reply to your todo items to add comments or further details to the activity they refer to.
Feel free to share your ideas on this.
in theory instead of having another account it should be possible to send mails to yourself (catching “me” instead of me-todo).
Not sure it would make sense, but it seem it could go hand in hand with the “keep an empty inbox” rule
Well, the account+something notation is not physically another account, it’s just a mechanism GMail offers to let you filter incoming emails. It’s interesting to note that paolo.dona@gmail.com, paolodona@gmail.com, PAOLODONA@gmail.com, paolo.dona+fuckyou@gmail.com are all redirected to my paolo.dona@gmail.com account (see here) . Of course it would be possible to catch “me” instead of “todo”, but I usually send myself tons of emails with links, references, documents so I needed a way to distinguish between todos and other stuff.
@riff: you seem a very productive guy, how do you keep track of your todos?
I use google calendar to track my todos. I see a todo as an appointment which will take me a defined amount of time. I can drag’n’drop todos keeping alerts, so I can plan my work. I also shared that calendar with my coworkers and my boss (he can do better plans in this way).
Yes, there is again something ToDo, but they will do it.
Peter from Germany :-)