Here are a few suggestions to help you focus on completing tasks rather than managing your to-do list:

1. Pick a tool and methodology. I’m not going to dictate a specific tool, because the tool you use has to fit your needs, work well with the type of job you do and make it easy for you to get things done. The important thing is to pick a tool that works for you. For years, I used the task list in Microsoft Outlook because it was convenient, and when I switched to a Mac, I tried a bunch of different tools before eventually settling on Hiveminder. When I was consulting, I found a task list wasn’t suitable, so I used shorter lists of the next three things I needed to do. Experiment until you find a tool a and methodology that you like, and then stick with it!
2. Keep it visible. The advantage of having a task list that is integrated with your email, like Gmail Tasks or Outlook’s task list, is that every time you look at your inbox, you have your tasks right where you can see them. With my web-based task list, I keep it open on a tab all the time, and I can quickly glance at what I need to get done. If you use a standalone task manager or a simple text document, you can keep it open on your desktop and easily accessible. By keeping your tasks visible and easy to access, you’re much more likely to see them and complete your tasks.
3. Create tasks from email. One of my favorite email productivity tips is to get task items out of your email and onto your task list; having an efficient process to create tasks from email content is important. In Hiveminder, I can forward email to a special Hiveminder address with a subject line that includes commands for things like due date and priority, and the email appears as a new task in Hiveminder right away. Other task list software lets you drag and drop email onto your to-do list, or is integrated into email clients. The important thing is to have some kind of process that allows you to quickly create new tasks from email using a method that works for you.
4. Prioritize. You’ll want to use prioritization to distinguish the tasks that are critically important. I tend to use three categories — high, medium and low — which lets me quickly scan down my list for the highest priority items. While some people argue task priority should be based on the importance of the task alone, with a due date to signify urgency, I take a more pragmatic approach and set priorities based on a combination of importance and urgency.
5. Due dates. I give every task a due date. Even when I need to arbitrarily pick a date, it helps me make sure I don’t lose track of anything. I sort my task list by date and then priority, so all of my tasks for the day are at the top of my list, in a rough order of importance. This helps me stay focused on what I need to accomplish today, and it helps me get more done. For those tasks that have arbitrary due dates, I can at least look at the task on the day that I’ve marked it as due, then decide whether I should do it right away or look at it again in a few days or a few weeks.
6. Daily reality check. While you should look over your task list throughout the day, spend a minute or two every day doing a quick “reality check” on the tasks you have scheduled. First thing in the morning or at the end of the day are good times for this. What you want to focus on during the reality check phase is how much time you really have to work on your tasks and which ones are the most important. For any tasks that you know you won’t be able to do, you can bump the due date for that task out into the future or just move it way down the prioritization. Some tasks will have increased or decreased in priority relative to other tasks, so you’ll want to adjust those priorities, too. The important thing is to get rid of the clutter so that you can more easily see which tasks you need to focus on now.

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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?

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We are all distracted by different things. Some people who work at home are distracted by household chores, TV, food or other personal distractions. For some reason, the personal chores around the house aren’t really a distraction for me, but I have plenty of distractions of my own. My significant other also freelances and works at home, and he can be a distraction if I forget to shut my office door or decide to work from some other area in the house. I’m also distracted by side projects, Twitter and other tasks that are slightly work related, but non-revenue generating. It’s amazing how much time these social media tools and other websites can consume without realizing it. I’ll occasionally follow a link from Twitter or my RSS reader for what I think will be a quick read, but before I know it I’ve been sucked into reading something interesting and 30 minutes will have passed.

Recently, I realized that I was getting distracted and spending too much time in an unlikely area: my task list. Wait, aren’t task lists a good thing to spend time on? Yes, to a point. However, I realized that I was spending way too much time re-reading my task list to decide which task to tackle next. It isn’t unusual for me to have 10-20 items that I would like to finish, and those items vary in priority and urgency.  Every time I completed a task, I had to go back to my task list to pick my next task. I decided that this was an inefficient use of my time to do this after every task. I still work in chunks and schedule my time, but I’m getting more organized about how often I go back to my task list.

The Next 3 Things

I now have a little document that I keep open called “The Next 3 Things.” Starting in the morning, I look at my task list to pick the next three things that I need to work on, and I add them to the document. I don’t go back to my task list until those three things are finished. When I finish a grouping of three things, I go back to my task list to pick the next three things.

I combine it with working in chunks by combining items that span several tasks in my task list into a single item in my “Next 3 Things” list. For example, four individual tasks for the same client will probably be grouped into a single item in my next 3 things list to work in a chunk of time focused on that client. I also cheat sometimes by adding a section at the bottom for tasks that I want to do at a particular time. For example, I might want to write a specific blog post while I eat lunch or go to the bank before it closes to deposit checks.

This is just one technique for prioritizing your work to stay focused on the right tasks while avoiding distractions, but it has been working for me.

What are your tips for staying focused and avoiding distractions?

Photo by Flickr user Martin Kingsley used under Creative Commons.

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The Solution to Anxiety-ridden “Becoming”

The Pomodoro Technique aims to erase the uneasiness that come with “Becoming.” The “Becoming”concept is a tough one to explain. Yet, when you put it to practice, it instantly makes sense. At first, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, but when I tried out the process, it clicked it. (More on that in a moment.)

So here’s the official definition of “Becoming” from Cirillo: “An abstract, dimensional aspect of time, which gives rise to the habit of measuring time (seconds, minutes, hours); the idea of representing time on an axis, as we would spatial dimensions; the concept of the duration of an event (the distance between two points on the temporal axis); the idea of being late (once again the distance between two points on the temporal axis).”

In general, the Pomodoro Technique shifts time away from the stressful “Becoming” to an approach that takes the pain out of working with it. The Pomodoro web site offers a free download of the book that explains all of this in detail. If it sounds complex, don’t worry — it’s actually quite simple when you start using it. The technique uses minimal tools and just five steps to help the mind focus better and get things done.

How to Use the Pomodoro Technique

Many of us probably fall into the trap that we find ourselves distracted by other things while working on a task that lasts longer than 30 minutes. The Pomodoro will slash these interruptions.

Want to give it a shot? Grab a kitchen timer, pencil, eraser and a sheet of paper before you get started. Apply the Pomodoro Technique by following these five steps:

1. Pick the task.
2. Set the timer to 25 minutes.
3. Do the task until the timer dings.
4. Take a short break.
5. Take a longer break for every four completed Pomodoros.

You won’t need to buy a timer if you use the free Focus Booster app, which applies the Pomodoro Technique with its built-in timers. You can try either the Adobe Air desktop or the web-based version.

My First Attempt

Intrigued? I was. I tried to write this article in several 25 minute sessions. I kept checking email during the first session. That’s one big bad habit I have there.  But my next session was much more successful: I worked on the article for the entire 25 minutes sessions after that without stopping — not even to read email.

Furthermore, I exercised for 25 minutes straight without letting myself stop for a minute to check my text messages or email. This approach does feel less stressful and offers a great option if I find myself in a rut. I can see how the Pomodoro provides a dollop of hope for those struggling with focus and time management.

Visit the Pomodoro web site for more info on the technique.

Have you tried the Pomodoro Technique? Does it work for you?

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In summary, if you’re looking for a very basic, free to-do list app — especially if you’d like to print your to-do lists — then SimplyGTD might be worth checking out, but I think for most people the extra functionality, integration with other apps, and flexibility offered by Google Tasks (which can even be tweaked into a reasonable Getting Things Done app) or Remember the Milk would make them better options.

SimplyGTD’s main selling point is that it is very simple — but is it too simple?

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For a while, I’d sync Outlook and Palm Desktop, and then Outlook would update the BlackBerry (I didn’t actually use Outlook at all, it just acted as the middleman). It worked great. But then my dependence on Google Calendar  grew, because I could access it from any computer as well as my BlackBerry, and it wouldn’t work with my sync setup.

I investigated many tools and synchronization applications to find a perfect sync solution. I didn’t want to use lots of different applications to syncing needs.

The almost perfect solution was to find a dedicated synchronization app. Mine comes from CompanionLink. This method cuts out Outlook for good. CompanionLink now has a Google edition available that synchronizes all of Palm Desktop’s features with Google, too. For updating my BlackBerry, I use Google Sync for Mobile. It’s still not perfect, but it works and I can access and update my information in Google or Palm, while my BlackBerry just has access to the information.

If you’re struggling to find the perfect syncing app, here are some options (some free and some paid):

• Chapura: PocketMirror has been around for a long time, and syncs Palms with Outlook. Its Echo and PocketMirror work with Palm Pre.
• CompanionLink: Syncs Google, Palm Pre, ACT!, LotusNotes, Outlook and many others.
• Google Sync: free Google syncing applications for Mac, Linux, Android and others.
• gSyncit: Syncs Outlook and Gmail.
• Mark/Space: Sync apps for Macs.
• Sync’Em: Connects Macs with Exchange and Outlook.

How do you keep your data in sync?

Photo credit: djwudi

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• 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.

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The web app has two key features: adding new to-do items and setting reminders. It also lets you set up email or SMS reminders.

The service provides an iCal link so you can incorporate your reminders into an iCal-compatible calendar. Google Calendar, for one, can import Superminder’s tasks and due dates. In my tests, this worked, although not perfectly: It doesn’t look like it transfers recurring tasks and it sometimes takes quite some time before Superminder updates Google Calendar with tasks, or maybe it’s the other way around. Refreshing the calendar doesn’t speed up the update process.

Superminder can send reminders by SMS and every account receives two free reminders. If you want more, it costs $4 to buy 15 SMS credits or $13 to buy 50. Google Calendar has its own email and SMS notification, so you can work around these charges if you import Superminder into Google Calendar.

Although Superminder doesn’t come with instructions, it’s so simple you don’t really need them. However, it would be nice to know why the iCal feature doesn’t update as regularly as I’d like. Superminder offers a viable solution to those needing a simple to-do application that’s accessible over the web.

What reminders app do you use?

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I’ve struggled for years to try to find the right solution for me. I’ve used a Franklin Planner, a Palm T/X, Microsoft Outlook , Remember The Milk, and a few other options. Nothing ever seemed quite right for me, though, and at times I found myself scribbling on paper pads still.

That was the case until I bought my first Mac and started looking for a task list for OS X. One of my friends recommended Things from Cultured Code. I almost didn’t try it because of the price ($49.95 desktop, $9.95 iPhone app). Thankfully, there is a free trial of the desktop application, so I was able to check it out without committing to the hefty price tag. It’s good that there’s a free trial, because I would otherwise have passed it by.

Put simply, Things has been the solution I’ve been searching for. It has revolutionized my productivity. It works with my natural flow, instead of against it.

I like to make long lists of tasks. There are urgent tasks that I have to get done immediately, the ones I need to get around to soon, and my projects and long-term items. Things gives me ways to track all of those items, without them having to be in my face all the time making me feel overwhelmed.

The desktop version of Things is very Leopard in its look and feel. It is simple, uncluttered and intuitive to use. It syncs with both iCal and the company’s iPhone app (via Wi-Fi).

I can easily drag-and-drop my tasks between the Today, Next and Someday lists to prioritize them. I can use tags or areas of responsibility to filter the list to show only certain types of tasks.

It isn’t quite as easy to move tasks around on the iPhone app. Since drag-and-drop isn’t an option there, it takes a few more steps. But the iPhone app is excellent for adding items on the go, or reviewing your current list and marking tasks complete.

One of my favorite functions in Things is the ability to make project lists. For a large project with multiple tasks or steps, I can create a project list of all those tasks and then drag individual tasks to my Today or Next lists while still also viewing them as part of the project as a whole. If a time comes when I am focusing almost solely on a project (such as the trade show I have in a few days) I can use the project list as my main working list.

Scheduled tasks are probably my other favorite feature of Things. For a future task, either a one-time or a recurring one, it is easy to create a scheduled item that will not appear on my main lists until I need to see it. This avoids distracting clutter and keeps me from feeling overwhelmed by tasks that don’t actually need to be seen at the moment.

Task management that fits well with how I think and work is worth the price of Things to me.  I am getting more things done, and feeling less stressed about it. That is priceless.

Do you love your task manager? Or are you still looking?

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Instead of feeling guilty, I do other tasks that matter to my business but aren’t my main job, tasks that don’t require the same energy or “mood” as writing does. Whenever the writing muse decides to take a break without my permission, I can work on editing or reviewing tasks instead.

But even if I don’t have any reviewing or editing lined up, there are some tasks that almost everyone can do, guilt-free, regardless of your career. Try one of these next time you hit the wall.

Do social networking: Hey, it is a marketing tool! Social networking is fun and maybe you’ll dig up some new work opportunities or the motivation you need to return to your core duties. Twitter and LinkedIn count!

Reconcile bank accounts: It’s administrative and dull, but most of us have to ensure our bank accounts balance.

Manage invoices: You do want to be paid, don’t you? Make sure your invoices are up-to-date and paid.

Follow up with clients: It’s OK to call or email clients just to see how they’re doing. Contacting them without any motive can make your relationship stronger. Why not surprise them with a handwritten “thank you” note?

Read content related to your work: Here’s one time where you don’t have to feel guilty about Internet surfing. Hopefully, reading WebWorkerDaily helps you to learn something new and become a better web worker. Don’t forget about books, newspapers and magazines. They all count. Well, maybe not People magazine, unless you’re in the entertainment business.

Clean up email: A less cluttered email box equals a more organized mind.

Write a blog post: Even if you don’t have a blog (why not set one up?), consider contributing a guest blog post to another blog that your prospective customers read.

Find a better way to do something: This could mean time and money savings. Are you not happy with your invoicing process? Research other options. Change is hard, but can pay dividends. I just got a new computer and don’t look forward to switching over to it, but should mean a faster and more efficient system.

Exercise: While this doesn’t directly contribute to your business, staying healthier ensures you have fewer sick days and doctor’s visits.

What business-related activities do you do when you don’t feel like doing core business tasks?

Photo credit: Gaston Thauvin

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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)

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The web site is nicely designed and registering for it is straightforward. While registering, you set up defaults for your alerts — how you’d like to be reminded (email, SMS or both) and how far in advance of each task you’d like to be reminded.

You have two choices for entering tasks: natural language input and “Advanced” (manual input). The default is natural language input, which is fast and works pretty well if you stick to simple sentences and follow the format provided in the example. Unfortunately, once you stray a little from the example format, it falls down, and you have to go in and edit the task. For example, if you try to enter “meeting with Dave in 30 minutes”, it sets a task of “meeting with Dave in 0 minutes” for 3 a.m. on the current day. Natural language processing like this is a really tricky thing to get right, and Task.fm is still only in beta, but having to switch to manual input to re-enter tasks would get annoying fast. It’s also somewhat limiting to have to enter your reminders through the web app. With natural language input, I would like to be able to set reminders on the go through email, SMS or even voice input.

Once your reminders are set, it’s easy to manage and edit them. SMS and email alerts are timely and work just as you would expect, but I couldn’t find a way to set up phone call alerts.

Email reminders are free, but SMS and phone alerts cost 1 credit each. The cost of a credit varies depending on how many you buy, starting at 20 credits for $2. New accounts come with 10 credits, so you can try the SMS reminders for free.

Task.fm shows some promise with its simple, easy-to-use interface, but until the natural language input can deal with everything its users are likely to throw at it, I don’t believe it’s ready for widespread use (I Want Sandy — unfortunately now shuttered — was a great example of simple sematic input done right). I’ll be sticking with Google Calendar for my alerts.

What reminders app do you use?

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Capturing and Tracking Your Thoughts

To use reQall over the phone you just dial a toll-free number and talk to it. reQall accepts voice commands to add items, share a reminder with another reQall user (a useful feature for teams of web workers), listen to your current lists and ask reQall to send a list to your phone.

reQall’s call-in system works for me even though I’m deaf. The detailed step-by-step quickstart guide shows how to call reQall to add an item. It transcribes your audio message into text and keeps the audio file. The system did a decent job of transcribing my notes, although it missed a couple of things with my imperfect speech. Still, the accuracy is impressive and you can edit anything it gets wrong. The system publishes the audio recording to your account on the web site in an instant and the text version of the audio shows up within a few minutes.

Of course, you can also enter capture items from within the web app, in the large “Add” box on the left of the screen, as you can see.

Communication Options

There are many ways to view your lists from the reQall application. In fact, at first it can seem a bit overwhelming. You can receive transcripts of new audio items by email, text message (SMS) or instant message (IM). You can also receive reminders and shared items in the same way. reQall sends a daily memory jog by email at a scheduled time.

You can also interact with it over IM. Once you add reQall to your buddy list,  it will message you to confirm receipt of items or to let you know that it doesn’t understand a command.

reQall comes with a free application for BlackBerrys and iPhones that syncs with your reQall account. The reQall app also works with iPod Touch, except for the voice recording feature, unless you have a microphone.

A plug-in for Microsft Outlook integrates reQall with Outlook’s contacts, calendar and tasks. reQall also works with Google Calendar and calendars that support the iCal standard, including Apple iCal.

reQall Jogger on BlackBerry

reQall iPhone app

Unique Features

Memory Jogger reviews your notes, current location and upcoming calendar items to predict when you need a reminder to jog your memory. Those on an iPhone can shake their phones for a EureQa, which opens a reminder or Memory Jog each time it shakes.

reQall is location-aware. The “My Places” tab stores your notes that are specific to certain locations such as home, school, work, grocery store, etc. However, I found this feature is buggy, as it rarely adds items when they refer to a place that appears on the list. Furthermore, reQall for the BlackBerry won’t recognize any of my locations, even though Google Maps knows exactly where I am. If it worked, it would prove valuable in giving you relevant reminders when you’re near one of your listed places.

So, Is it Useful?

Honestly, reQall has many features to meet every communications preference. While it looks overwhelming, it won’t be once you decide how you want to interact with it.

It’ll take time to get the hang of reQall’s limited vocabulary, which makes it tricky to figure out how to give it the correct command. But being able to access, and interact with, your to-dos wherever you are, no matter what you are doing is extremely useful for any web worker.

reQall comes in two flavors: Standard and Pro. Standard is free while Pro costs $2.99 per month or $24.99 per year. You can try Pro for 30-days free without entering a credit card.The key difference between the two is that Standard doesn’t include Pro Memory Jogger, location-based reminders and the ability to manage items with email.

Those in the U.S., the UK and Canada can register by phone; otherwise you can sign up on the web site.

How do you remember things?

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A good online sticky notes apps can be useful in a number of way: You can use it to track work for clients, keep an eye on to-dos items and due dates, and to brainstorm and work collaboratively with groups.

Based in Japan, Infoteria Corp. provides Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean editions of lino. The latest version adds some useful features:

• New interface for improved navigation.
• Share stickies with others.
• A “My Page” overview of everything, including public canvases.
• Visual search results.
• The ability to embed lino into your blog or web page.
• More canvas templates.

lino is a free service with up to 10MB of file attachment on a single sticky, with a total limit of 100MB of storage per month. lino ’09 also introduces a premium version, priced at $3 per month. The premium service increases the per-note file attachment and total storage limits to 100MB and 1GB respectively, with unlimited downloads, contains no ads and comes with email support.

You can try the service as a guest, without registering, by going to the lino home page.

To create your own canvases, your online space for posting stickies, you’ll need to register. lino comes with public canvases including “How to lino,“  so you can see how others use their canvases and learn from them.

I decided to try lino as a simple GTD app to test it out. I started with two canvases: “To Do Today” and “To Do List.” I quickly figured out how to create a new sticky and was on my way to filling my canvas — each to-do item became a new sticky on my canvases.

Stickies can hold content, photos, file attachments and videos. Just drag a sticky to the canvas to start a new one. Or click one of the four media sticky options to add a photo, video, file or transparent sticky. I sent my first sticky as an email, too. This is a handy feature when collaborating with other web workers on a canvas as it notifies the recipient that the user has put a new sticky on the canvas.

The stickies work like plain text files, but with a choice of five font sizes. Editing options such as bulleted lists or adding hyperlinked text aren’t available. However, URLs added to a sticky (with or without the “http://” added) automatically become active links. With rich text formatting standard on similar web apps,  it surprised me that lino doesn’t have it.

lino allows you to move stickies by dragging and dropping them from one canvas to another, so it’s a breeze to move items from my general to-do list to “To Do Today,” To avoid any accidental deleting of a sticky, you can pin it with a click. All the stickies come with action icons, such as a pencil for editing the sticky and a calendar for setting a due date. These icons all have tool tips to help figure out what each does.

For my GTD application, when I was finished with a to-do item, I’d peel off the sticky and find the task gone for good (unless it’s the very last action completed, then you can click “undo” to get it back). To keep completed to-do items, I created another canvas called “Completed”  and dragged completed stickies onto it.

Group Canvases let virtual web workers and teams share a canvas. Just create a new canvas and select to allow either anyone to join with administrator approval or by invitation only. Stickies in a group canvas come with an icon to identify who posted the sticky and the time.

The user preferences page keeps track of storage and downloads so users know how much they’ve done for the month. You can choose to get notifications when someone posts a new sticky as well as get a daily email at a selected time. The Calendar and RSS feature lets you subscribe to stickies with due dates in iCalendar format, in Google Calendar or in RSS. lino also comes with handy bookmarklets for adding content to lino including the URLs, titles, selected text and images from web pages.

lino is a useful app for web workers, with a number of different applications including collaboration and keeping track of to-dos. lino works with Firefox 3, Safari 3, Chrome, IE6 and IE7. However, application performance varies by browser.

How would you use online stickies?

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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?

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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?

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