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Getting Things Done With Google

There are a lot of tools out there for managing your tasks, but my favorite is Google.

I’ve tried several applications, especially a ton of iPhone apps, and they all vary in complexity and portability. I need something that is easy, flexible, and accessible from any device in the world.

The marriage of Google Mail + Contacts + Tasks + Calendar + Documents is perfect for tracking conversations, creating tasks, and remembering events that link to those conversations. I can access and manage them whenever I check my email on my PC or my iPhone.

I use Google Mail for all of my personal and music business email accounts. It pulls in email from many different accounts automatically, so I have one central repository for all my email, regardless of source. I can also send email from multiple accounts, including from johnalbertthomas.com.

Just this past week, Google released a new Google Contacts interface, which is a lot more user-friendly than it used to be. It’s a great place to store all of your contacts, and have them accessible when sending email, even from your iPhone. It lets you import and export contacts, and even does a splendid job of merging duplicates.

Google Tasks helps me remember and focus quickly on things I need to do. Most of my tasks originate as email conversations, which I flag for follow-up. These tasks appear with a link back to the email conversation so that I can go back and refresh my memory, or send a notification when I finish the task. I can set deadlines on the task as well. My favorite thing to do is click the little checkbox that indicates the task is completed and marks a line through the task. Then I can hide the completed tasks until I want to go back and see all that I accomplished last month!

Google Calendar lets me get a big picture of all tasks that need to be accomplished and places I need to be in the next few days. I can invite people by email address to my events, and be reminded by email and popup when those events are about to start. I setup multiple calendars, including one for tracking billable hours I need to bill clients at the end of the month. I can even share calendars with others.

Google Documents cured me of the urge to upgrade Microsoft Office every year or two. Now I create and manage my documents and spreadsheets in my browser and they save automagically. I can attach them to email, export them as PDF, and share them with other users. It was a very cool thing to discover that my wife and I could discuss and edit the same spreadsheet over the phone and see changes immediately on both ends. The iPhone version is good, though they could improve the spreadsheets to add/edit formulas in a cell.

Conclusion

If you are like me, most of your tasks and events originate from email conversations. Google lets you remember and track these in such a way that you can remember and focus quickly. This is very important because when lunch time comes, or when your kids are off to bed, you can pop open your browser, check your email, and knock out one or two of your tasks per day. And then, a month from now, you will find great satisfaction in seeing all that you accomplished!

Comments

  • Denis says:
    August 15, 2010 at 4:26 pm

    You don’t have to chose between native iPhone app and Google Tasks – you can easily have both with my app GeeTasksLite. It adds back missing functionality such as indenting and reordering tasks, but more importantly it also works offline, allowing you to even edit you task list without network being present.