The poll will run until November 19, after which time the Tasks team will review the feedback they’ve received and prioritize requests.

Personally, I really like the way that Tasks is fairly basic and quick to work with, so I hope that the Tasks teams don’t decide to change it too much. Even without many of the advanced features present in other to-do list apps, Tasks is still capable enough to use in a GTD system.

What new features would you like to see in Tasks?

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub. req.):

• Are You Empowering Your Mobile Workforce?
• Report: The Real-Time Enterprise
• How to Manage Consumer-Grade Collaborative Tools in the Workplace

• Tab: Moves the current task to the right (makes the task a sub-task).
• Shift+Tab: Moves the task to the left.
• Ctrl (Win)/Cmd (Mac) + Up/Down: Moves the task up or down the list.
• Shift + Enter: Edits the current task.
• Alt + Enter: Marks a task as complete (will also mark a completed task as incomplete).
• Alt + Shift + Enter: Removes completed task from the list.
• Esc: Closes Tasks.
• Shift + Esc: Switches focus from Tasks to Gmail.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a shortcut for moving tasks between lists, which is something that I would find very useful with my GTD system. Tasks has been getting some nice, incremental improvements recently that make it into a very useful task manager (Calendar integration and last week’s addition of the ability to export task lists via email, for example); better keyboard shortcuts would be the icing on the cake.

Bonus tip: While in Gmail hit G then K, which will open Tasks and switch the focus to it. (This will only work if you have keyboard shortcuts enabled — the option is available on the Settings page.) You can also create a task from the current message using Shift + T.

If you’ve found any hidden keyboard shortcuts in Tasks, let us know in the comments.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks

Google Tasks, the simple to-do system built into Gmail (previously covered on WebWorkerDaily), has just been integrated into Google Calendar. Tasks with due dates will now show up in the Calendar, and it’s possible to enter tasks directly into it as well.

Go into your Calendar, and you should see a “Tasks” link on the left-hand side of the window. Click it, and you’ll see a new Tasks sidebar spring up on the right, with all your tasks synced from Gmail, and a new “Tasks” calendar will be added to your list of calendars.

This means that tasks with a set due date will now show up in your Calendar in the “All Day” section at the top of the window (as tasks can only have a due date, not a a time).

You can enter tasks with a due date directly into your Calendar by clicking in the “All Day” boxes at the top of the window in “Day” or “Week” views (or on the day in “Month” view) and hitting  the “Task” link in the pop-up window.

After starting out as a simple and somewhat useful addition to Gmail, Tasks is becoming a very handy product in its own right, and while not as capable as full-featured to-do list apps like Things or Remember The Milk, it’s possible to use it in some quite powerful ways (for example, see my previous post on using Tasks as part of a GTD system).

Calendar integration was a no-brainer, as not being able to see Tasks due dates in your Calendar was quite annoying, but further integration with other Google products, like Docs, for example, could make the product even more useful.

Have you tried the new Tasks/Calendar integration? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

(via Google Operating System)

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks

There’s a simple way to do this using Memo, a service from Spinvox. Memo is a note-taking service you can use with your phone. Call a number, leave your message, and Spinvox converts the speech to text and emails it to a designated account. This is really handy for use with GTD. I’ll explain how I’m using it with my Gmail Tasks system, but you could also use it quite easily with any other GTD app. You could also use Jott, a similar speech-to-text service, but that’s no good for me as it’s only available in the U.S.

First, sign up for a free Spinvox Memo account (Memo is available in the U.S, the UK, Canada, France, Germany and Spain). After signing up, you’ll be sent Spinvox’s Memo phone number. Store this number in your phone’s contacts.

Then, when you’re away from your computer and you think of a task, just dial the number and record your message. Spinvox will then convert the message to text and email it to your Gmail inbox. The text-to-speech works very well. It struggles with some technical words (it phonetically spells any words it can’t figure out), but for the purposes of taking quick notes it’s easily good enough.

Once you’re back at your computer it’s just a case of copying and pasting the note from the email into the Inbox list of your Gmail Tasks (or any other app), and the idea is safely stored in your trusted GTD system.

Copying a note from Spinvox to Gmail Tasks

One feature that would be nice to see would be the option to put the message text in the email subject line instead of the body of the email. That way, you wouldn’t even have to copy and paste the details across to Tasks; you could just click More actions -> Add to Tasks in Gmail to create the task automatically. If this functionality is a priority for you, you could probably write a script that moved the message into the subject line — but for the occasional note it’s no big deal to copy and paste.

I tend to think of things I need to add to GTD at the most inconvenient of times, often when I’m nowhere near a computer. However, I always have my phone with me. This system makes sure I don’t forget any ideas I have away from the office.

Have you used Spinvox? What do you think?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• How Speech Technologies Will Transform Mobile Use
• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce

Here’s how you can set up and use Gmail Tasks for GTD.

Rename your current list to Inbox

Renaming a list in Gmail Tasks

Rename your current list by clicking the lists icon and selecting “Rename list” (or alternatively, set up a brand new list). This is the list to use as your collection bucket, where where you’ll add new tasks, either from email or as you think of them.

Add more lists

You’ll need to add some more lists to help sort and prioritize your tasks. Do this by clicking the lists icon and then “New list…”

Adding a new list in Gmail Tasks

You need to add at least four more lists: “Next actions,” “Deferred,” “Delegated,” and “Someday/maybe.” I also set up lists for other contexts (“Home”). Because I only use GTD for work stuff (I know, I’m terrible), I don’t need anything more complex than this, but if I did use GTD for everything, the inability to handle contexts properly would probably be too limiting. Then again, if you’re a real GTD nut you probably have a more fully-featured task management app anyway.

Gmail Tasks lists set up for GTD

Use notes to add information about your tasks

Unfortunately, Gmail Tasks doesn’t have the kind of task metadata that you take for granted in more fully-featured task management apps: tags, the ability to assign tasks to people, etc. But each task can be set a due date and you can add notes, so you can use the Notes field to add information about the action, such as the project that it belongs to or the person you’ve delegated a task to. Add the required information to any outstanding tasks in your inbox.

Usage

Once you have your lists set up and you’ve added the required metadata to your existing tasks, you’re ready to rock. Collect tasks in your inbox: I do this whenever a thought strikes without worrying too much about whether it really is something for me to do. Remember that you can use Gmail’s handy “Add to Tasks” feature (available through the “More actions” button on each email) to automatically create tasks from emails, together with a link back to the original email.

When you conduct your GTD review — I do mine daily — clear out the inbox and move the tasks to the appropriate list. You can move an item to another list by clicking the little arrow to the right of the task name and selecting the appropriate list to move it to (note: when I first did this I was somewhat confused as there is no “OK” button: rest assured the task is moved into the appropriate list when you click “Back to list”). That’s all there is to it.

Moving tasks between lists in Gmail Tasks

Advanced usage: indentation to organize tasks by project

Tasks has quite a neat indentation feature. You could use it to organize tasks in your lists by project. Create a new list for “Projects”. Then create a top-level task with the name of each project, then indent the tasks under each project.

A projects list in Gmail Tasks

If you move a top-level task between lists, it will move all of the indented tasks, too, which is quite handy.

I’m not worrying about projects too much at the moment though. I’m going to keep my Gmail Tasks GTD implementation pretty simple, as this is just an interim solution and, personally, I think if you are using Tasks to that degree it might be time to think about migrating to a more fully-featured task management app.

What tips do you have for using Gmail Tasks for GTD?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Web startups: How to guard against security breaches
• Personal tools lead to practical business
• 12 tech leaders’ resolutions for 2012