Google Task Lists

       Horrrrrrraaay……..Finally, Google released a much awaited Gadget: todo or Task list. Checkout the Google Blog post for more details. Based on few minutes of testing, below are some insights: 

Pros:

1. Similar to any Google product, the Task Gadget has a clean interface and is simple to use. 

2. Users can create multiple lists to separate tasks. Thus, you can create Grocery task list, Work related task list, Study related task list, movies list, songs lists, etc. 

3. Tasks can be organized hierarchically. Thus, you can have multiple level of subTasks. This is one of the feature that is currently lacking in “Remember The Milk”, one of the best task managing software/website I ever used. 

4. You can automatically create tasks from email. Simply select the email and select “Add to task” from “More actions” drop down menu. An interesting feature about this is that the newly create task also links backs to the original email. Thus, you can click on ‘related email’ below the task and it will open the email which was used to create the task. 

Cons:

1. To set due date, you need to click on little arrow on the right hand side of the task and manually set the due date. It would have been much more convenient to use GCal like feature where you can simply say “to do this by Tomorrow” or “to do that by Jan 5, 2009”.  I am not sure why Task Gadget simply reused that GCal’s functionality. But I am sure Google will improve on this. 

2. You can’t view all the list at the same time. You have to switch between lists. Similar to GCal Gadget in GMail, it would have been nice to have a view that shows all the tasks from all the list that are due today, tomorrow and in coming days.

3. You cannot import or export list or tasks. Well, the Gadget is still in Labs and I assume this functionality will be available soon. 

In Summary,  I really found Task Gadget very interesting. Moreover, It will become more powerful as it will get integrated with Google products, mainly with GCal. However, as discussed above, there are definitely some issues that Google will have to work on. For me, the biggest drawback is its inability to view all tasks from all list at the same time.  Nevertheless, I am sitll excited about it. 

How to enable task list functionality: Go to Gmail setting page > click on Labs Tab > Enable Tasks Gadget > Click on Save. In the left column of GMail (below the navigation menu), you will see a new label “Tasks”. Click on “Tasks” and this popup a small widget which is basically your Task Gadget.