Gmail Task Manager

Gmail has recently added a cool new feature that will allow you to sort of keep a to-do list inside your Inbox. Currently the feature is available as part of Gmail Labs and Google OS Blog predicts that this will be the most popular experimental feature.

How to Enable Gmail Tasks

Simply login to your Gmail account and head over to Gmail Labs (Settings > Labs ) and there you will be see something like the following -

So simply click on “Enable” and Save your settings and then you are done! Your Inbox will reload and you should be able to see the following link -

How to Use Gmail Tasks

Click on the “Tasks” link and it will load your Gmail Task inside your Inbox.

Now you can start adding your tasks easily by clicking anywhere on the white space inside the task panel. You can also add emails to your to-do list by simply selecting an email and clicking on “Add to Task” from the More Action Menu. Illustration provided below:

Google Operating System blog shared some useful shortcuts of Gmail Tasks:

• Open the tasks box by typing g then k if you have keyboard shortcuts enabled.
• Create a task from an email by pressing Shift+T if you have keyboard shortcuts enabled.
• Navigate between tasks using the arrows.
• Delete a task by deleting the text and hitting backspace.
• Organize your tasks by indenting them — just hit Tab to indent and Shift+Tab to un-indent.
• Ctrl+Up moves a task up the list and Ctrl+Down move it down.
• Hit Shift+Enter when in a task to show its details

Read Write Web has done a nice video of Gmail Task in action. So you can have a look at its feature before trying it out yourself. Eric @ Techcrunch also did a write up on Gmail Tasks earlier.

My Two Cents

Certainly this is an awesome inclusion by the Gmail Team. But I’m very disappointed that this Gmail Task can’t stay fixed in my sidebar. I need click on the task link every time I need to open it. Before Gmail Tasks was available I used to be a huge fan of Remember the Milk for Gmail. I think I’ll still continue to use them as it still has a lot more features that Gmail Tasks doesn’t provide yet. But adding emails to to-do-list is something that is new and worth trying out!

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