The gmail team announced today that there was a new feature in gmail labs: multiple inboxes. At first I thought, “Why do I need more than one inbox?”
Then it struck me. I’ve been into GTD ever since I discovered lifehacker in early 2007. I tried it by the book and couldn’t get anywhere, so I’ve adapted it slightly to meet my needs. All I do is list all of the projects that I’m working on and make a list of everything that I have to do to complete each one. I’ve been wanting to integrate GTD with my inbox for a while now, but I’ve never quite been able to get it right- until now. I can finally have the To Do list functionality that I’ve always craved from gmail.
Sure, they have their little gmail labs task widget. Its not detailed enough, no room for seperate projects, and not customizable. In other words its unuseable. I’m so glad that I have an alternative now. Its a pretty quick process to get it set up, so I thought I’d write a quick tutorial on how to use gmail for a simplified version of GTD.
Step One: Create your Labels
The first thing you need to do is create some labels for your tasks, projects, and done tasks. We’re going to need one label called “Task”, one label called “Done”, and one label for each project that you have list items for. If you want to learn more about labels, you can read more about them at google. Easy enough no?
Step Two: Set up your Filters
Now we’ll set up a few filters, so that your tasks get sorted into their corresponding projects and so that tasks don’t end up in your inbox. The first filter we’ll make is the most complex, its the one that makes sure your tasks don’t clutter your inbox.
I’m not sure how much you know about setting up filters, so I’ll walk you through it.
- Click the “Create a filter” link up by the “Search Mail” button
- In the “To:” textfield put in your email address plus “task” (e.g. username+task@gmail.com - or for apps customers username+task@yourdomain.com)
- Click “Next Step”
- Check “Skip the Inbox” and “Mark as read”
- Apply the label: Task
- Click “Create Filter”
Now that we have our tasks being filtered out of the inbox and into the Tasks label, its time to set up our projects filters.
- Click the “Create a filter” link
- In the “Has the words:” textfield write “Projects: <insert project name>” (e.g. “Projects: Gmail To Do List”)- Make sure you have the quotes!
- Click “Next Step”
- Apply the projects label
- Click “Create Filter”
- Rinse and Repeat for each project you have.
Now that we have our filters set up, we need to get our multiple inboxes set up.
Step Three: Get Multiple Inboxes Set up
Go into google labs and enable the Multiple Inboxes feature. This allows you to have more than one “box” on the front page of gmail. Pretty helpful when you’re trying to have your task list show up, no?
Alright, now that you have that enabled, go into your gmail settings and find the multiple inboxes settings tab. Here you can choose where you want the task list to appear (above, below, or to the right of your inbox) and how many tasks you’d like to be displayed at a time. I chose to have my tasklist below my inbox, and I think 15 is a good number to show.
Now we need to set up what is going to be displayed in the new task list pane. We can do that by using some of the gmail advanced search functions. If you think about it, we need to find all tasks that aren’t already done. How do you say that in gmail search? like this:
label:(Task -Done)
Just write that into the “Pane 0″ textbox. Thats it. We’re done with the setup work. Now lets add some tasks!
Step Four: The Tasks
We start by composing an email to yourself. Remember that email address that our filter is looking for? We need to send our tasks to that. So make the email out to yourusername+task@gmail.com (or whatever your email ended up looking like).
The subject of the message will be the task the you’d like to list. You can write in anything you’d like, but I find that the more specific you make it the better.
Now we need to tell the task what project its going to be filed under. Of course, its ok to not file it under anything, this whole process will work without projects. I just find that projects make things a little cleaner. In the body of the email, write exactly what you wrote in the “Has the words” field when you set up the filter. So if you had a project called “Garden” then you would write “Project: Garden” in the body of the email.
Send that baby out. Now, when the email arrives back to you, it should pop up in your task list!
A Couple of Hints and Techniques
Now, say you’ve completed one of those tasks. How do you say that its done? Just select the task and add the label “Done”. This will exclude it from the list, but keep it archived for your records.
I usually like to assign a next item for each of my projects. luckily, gmail make this very simple- I just use the star. When I complete the next item I unstar it, mark it as done and star the next item.
Next time I’ll show you how to use the Quick Links labs feature to set up some project specific to do lists, and to check out everything that you’ve done within a certain time period!
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