Comments for GMail, Struggling With Email, Wants to Be Your Task Manager Too

GMail, Struggling With Email, Wants to Be Your Task Manager Too

2008-12-09T00:20:44Z

Gmail has been limping along for days, with scores of people reporting down time, super slow responsiveness and other troubles. With no communication from Google about the problem - what are users to think? Perhaps that we should put more of our lives in the hands of the Gmail team!

This afternoon the GMail team announced the addition of a new feature in the Gmail Labs - a Task Manager, or to do list. It's quite an elegant little feature, when it and the rest of GMail work. Below we've got a two minute video tour that shows how the feature works, in case Gmail is down for you and you can't see it for yourself!

]]> To see the video, click on the strange gray triangle in the top left corner below.

To turn on the task manager for yourself, click on the settings link in your Gmail, then go to labs, enable Task Manager and then scroll to the bottom of the page to save your changes.

Do you foresee yourself using this?

Comment from James on 2008-12-28

2008-12-29T00:48:36Z

i think gmail would run alot faster if you didnt have nearly 75,000 emails in you inbox why dont you archive a few

Comment from salil on 2008-12-10

2008-12-10T14:29:51Z

@Marshal

Any connexn between the downtimes and launch of Video Chat, and Themes?

Comment from D on 2008-12-09

2008-12-09T22:25:14Z

I wouldn't say gmail has been down, just very slow to load the initial page, a lot of "loading" messages, and disconnects as you saw in the video. All around its been a pretty crappy experience the last couple weeks. I will be disabling some of the Labs options I have enabled to see if that makes a difference.

Comment from Clay Newton on 2008-12-09

2008-12-09T21:58:48Z

I am already starting to use this, and will definitely use it all the time if the folks at Appigo integrate this into their Todo app. I am paying for rememberthemilk right now (only because the iPhone app can't be used without paying). Having my tasks right there with my email would be huge.

Comment from Rebecca Hartong on 2008-12-09

2008-12-09T19:46:11Z

For tasks, Zenbe is the way to go. Free, has a nice little iPhone app, simple, easy to use, attractive interface. Love it. Zenbe.

Comment from Craig on 2008-12-09

2008-12-09T17:19:49Z

Thanks for pointing out the new taskmanager. Not sure if I will use it or not. I am pissed about GMail though like the others, no excuse and no notice. It's annoying.

Comment from Steve on 2008-12-09

2008-12-09T14:42:56Z

People have been asking for this for years, and now it's a little late. They've found other solutions such as GTD and Remember the Milk. As for the Gmail problems, I must be one of the lucky few...I rarely have ANY downtime at all. In fact I couldn't tell you the last time I couldn't access Gmail.

Comment from B on 2008-12-09

2008-12-09T14:07:32Z

@OlgaS = marketing fail.

As for the down time and the "struggling", I haven't had issues with gmail. I rarely do.

I think that's a tad bit subjective and a bit sensationalist. I do agree that the task feature is a bit simplistic, but that's google's MO.

Comment from fatherb on 2008-12-09

2008-12-09T13:29:00Z

why doesn't it connect with google calendar? bizarre.

Comment from Jim Gaudet on 2008-12-09

2008-12-09T13:11:35Z

I will use this for sure. I use my gmail webmail when I am in Ubuntu, so when I am on Windows I can login and send my Ubuntu self a note. Cool. And for Windows, I use OneNote, and it has saved my life. The organization is great and I never forget anything, as long as I onenote it.

Comment from Wash Echte on 2008-12-09

2008-12-09T10:04:25Z

Yeah, I will be using this. Also, I can't remember any significant slowness, or any downtime at all with any Google service I ever used.

You seem to have personal issues

Comment from venkat on 2008-12-09

2008-12-09T08:07:53Z

I love this Gmail ,always comes with new features and additions which other emails lacking ,I checked tasks in
Gmail its cool reminder program for our personal as well technical tasks.

Comment from OlgaS on 2008-12-08

2008-12-09T04:14:34Z

Google domination is everywhere. On the on hand the appearance of tasks is a great event for all googlers on the other hand it may turn out a catastrophy for all online task managers out there.
The presented functionality is very poor though. I prefer making up lists of tasks organizing them in hierarchy (that is possible in [task2gather.com]) and share with my friends and coworkers. Task2Gather is also available at AppStore so all iPhone users can enjoy using this great software.

Comment from theharmonyguy on 2008-12-08

2008-12-09T03:44:20Z

I'm a bit flabbergasted that this feature was added to Google's e-mail service instead of their calendar...

Comment from Stalyn on 2008-12-08

2008-12-09T02:58:20Z

Can this guys get any better?

Comment from sean on 2008-12-08

2008-12-09T02:49:49Z

They must have you folks at readwriteweb on some sort of a blacklist! I'm constantly using gmail and most of their services like apps, reader, notebook, docs and etc., but I've only noticed minor interruptions in service with about 1 hour of downtime about 8 months ago.

Comment from John on 2008-12-08

2008-12-09T02:45:48Z

Thanks for pointing this out, it's a clever feature to improve the functionality of GMail. And thanks in general for being receptive to spelling corrections like "stuggling" above. I hope the GMail team will correct the screenshot in their original post from "pouring over" to "poring over" as readily.

Comment from Tara on 2008-12-08

2008-12-09T02:33:06Z

Like the other commenters, I already have a well-established setup with Remember The Milk. I enjoy using the iGoogle gadget, the Gmail gadget, Ubiquity, e-mail to task and various other ways of accessing RTM other than just with Gmail open.

Comment from Marshall Kirkpatrick on 2008-12-08

2008-12-09T02:10:48Z

Parag, you are my favorite commenter of the day. Thanks! all fixed now.

Comment from cohnsey on 2008-12-08

2008-12-09T02:07:30Z

I hope gmail wont allow this function to be able to have other users assign you tasks. I have a feeling that is where this thing will end up.

Comment from Parag on 2008-12-08

2008-12-09T02:05:52Z

Marshall,
Nice Post.
"Stuggling" might want to correct it.

Parag

Comment from Nic Price on 2008-12-08

2008-12-09T01:47:42Z

@Matt W

You can use this in google apps. I've just switched it on in mine and it's working, though I'm still quite attached to RememberTheMilk.

To get it working in apps...

First you have to go to manage your Domain settings and scroll down the General tab to the section called "New Services and Features"

Here you have the option for:

1. Turn on new features (like group chat or colored labels)

2. Turn on new features in this domain when they are launched to Google consumers (before Google supports them for organizations using Google Apps). Learn more

Switching these on should enable Labs in your apps settings.

Comment from Daniel Bachhuber on 2008-12-08

2008-12-09T01:30:16Z

Why won't Google just buy RTM already? Just think if you had RTM across Google Apps for Your Domain, with just a little better team task management approach...

Comment from Matt W on 2008-12-08

2008-12-09T01:30:01Z

I'm looking forward to this getting into GMail Apps at some point. It isn't of much use for my personal gmail.com email - it's a pain that the Apps version lags behind so much on new features.

I have been using Gmail's labels and email as a task manager for some time now and really like it. Since email already inherently represents most of my tasks, managing tasks outside of email just means lots of needless data entry.

Finally, I can't help but comment on that screen shot. You have over 1,000 drafts, and almost 75K unread messages in your inbox? You need a system, Marshall!

Comment from Luke the Texican on 2008-12-08

2008-12-09T01:28:22Z

For me tasks is the final piece for total Outlook replacement for managing my life. I'm more excited about what I expect it to grow into that what it currently is, of course.

and I have not yet experienced any downtime with Gmail in recent memory, knock on wood....

Comment from xxdesmus on 2008-12-08

2008-12-09T01:26:25Z

Pretty cool addition, but it's too little too late. RTM's sidebar is MUCH better in my opinion, and it can be synced with Outlook/Windows Mobile devices.

Comment from lmjabreu on 2008-12-08

2008-12-09T01:19:10Z

Nice feature but I already use RTMilk which is much more mature.

BTW: slow? down time and other problems? gmail?

Comment from Four20 on 2008-12-08

2008-12-09T01:16:26Z

Marshall with another fascinating post. Go out, demand an apology from Google. . .that'll make it all better :p

Comment from Mickey on 2008-12-08

2008-12-09T01:04:32Z

A few days ago, I would have been fired up about this. However, I've recently discovered the awesomeness that is GTD (and IMO, the awesomeness that is Nozbe), and I'm hooked. While I'm sure this could be worked into being a decent GTD manager (especially with the related e-mail feature), I'm probably not gonna even try it.