You know how this goes. you open your gmail account and find yourself drowning in an ocean of over 10,000 unread emails, all of them lying around and disorganized. that may be a slight exaggeration. but you get the point: it’s hard to keep up with email.
It’s overwhelming, stressful, and ultimately hampers your productivity.
but lately, users have discovered ways to make gmail significantly more intuitive and collaborative, using gmail as a task manager. With this approach, you can completely overhaul your inbox and organize it so well that even Marie Kondo would be proud.
why use gmail as task manager?
- gmail already comes with a task list.
this is the main reason why it makes sense to manage your tasks directly in your gmail. Gmail comes bundled with an app called Google Tasks. is a to-do list app that allows you to create tasks, set due dates, reminders, etc. In addition to Gmail, it also syncs with your Google Calendar. it is ideal for those who want a simple and basic tool to stay on top of daily work.
- Most emails arrive as tasks.
Most of the emails you receive are likely tasks, whether it’s an email about a new ad campaign your marketing team plans to run or a sales meeting with a potential client or an event your company is hosting. A combination of gmail and google tasks is perfect for planning and tracking these action items.
- It’s better to have everything in one place.
If you regularly move your gmail tasks to a task management app, you will have to juggle between two different apps constantly. this can hamper your productivity if you have so many task-related emails. instead of being stuck in that spiral of switching between multiple apps, it’s convenient to have all of that in one place.
Before we start learning how to use gmail as a task manager, let’s cover some basics.
access google tasks in gmail
now let’s learn how to access and use google tasks in gmail.
go to your gmail inbox and click on “tasks” in the right panel. the google task app opens.
add a new task in gmail
- click the “add a task” button.
- enter the title of the task and press enter. you can even click the edit button on the side to add more details to it.
add an email as a task in gmail
- drag any email from your inbox to google tasks.
- click the edit button to enter the required details.
or simply select an email and click the google task icon to add the email to your google tasks.
set an expiration date
- click the edit button on a task and then click “add date/time”.
- choose the date and time here.
Here you also have the option to repeat the task for a specific number of days, weeks, months or years.
add a subtask
- click the edit button on a task and then click “add subtasks”.
- give the subtask a name and press enter. you can add any number of subtasks to a task.
creating a new list
- click the “my tasks” dropdown at the top.
- select “create new list”
- in the search box at the top , click the upside down triangle button. this will open a dropdown menu.
- Here, type a word or email you’d like to filter.
- further refine your filter conditions using the available form fields.
- click ‘create filter’.
- now choose what you like. would like me to filter do.
- click ‘create filter’.
how to manage tasks in gmail?
So far, you’ve understood the basics. now let’s look at some of the ways you can use gmail to manage your tasks.
- share tasks in google tasks
Whether it’s an advertising campaign your agency is running or an event you’re planning for a charity, collaboration and regular communication are key to working together as a team. you have to be aware of everything that happens: when your designer sends you those mockups, when your copywriter emails you the new copies of the ad and, most importantly, when your client emails you their feedback .
Simply set up tasks in Google Tasks and share them with your teammates to keep everyone in the loop. email them about updates and never let anything slip by.
- bookmark your marketing newsletters to read them later.
Not all newsletters are a waste of time. There are many excellent ones out there that offer valuable information to their readers on a regular basis. you should never get lost in them. at the same time, you may not have the freedom to digest all that information. Instead of ignoring those emails entirely or relying on your memory to come back to them later, just do the following.
create a filter to move all those newsletters to a specific tag/folder. then turn them into tasks by dragging and dropping them onto your task list. and set reminders to read them later.
automate.io can make this process easy for you. just try this gmail to google task integration.
- set reminders to pay bills.
Paying invoices to your suppliers or anyone you work with on time builds credibility and trust. An easier way to prevent those invoice emails from getting lost in your inbox is to create a filter for emails that contain the word “invoice” and move them to a folder.
connect your gmail to stripe and paypal and you will never miss a payment.
- Plan that partner meeting you’ve been working on for months.
Partnerships are a great way to partner with complementary businesses and introduce your brand to a new audience. emailing potential partners, following up with them, coordinating with your team – all of that is a lot of work. and requires proper planning and collaboration.
Always stay on top of the progress you’re making with gmail and google tasks. you can even use google calendar, too, in this combination. When you have meetings set up, turn them into tasks and keep track of how things are going. use this gmail to google calendar integration to configure the above scenarios.
- follow up with your team on completed tasks
When you work in a team, it’s crucial to keep them updated regularly. but if you’re working on multiple projects at once with multiple teams, it might not be ideal to email them every time you hit a progress point. for such cases, the following automation will be perfect for you.
conclusion
As you can see, there is nothing complicated about turning your gmail inbox into a task manager. you get a clear view of everything you’re working on in one place.
We have mentioned only a few use cases here. But when you start running one or two, you’ll eventually discover other creative ways to turn gmail into the ultimate to-do list.