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.
Socialize it: 
