Google Tasks: A Deeper Dive for Gmail & Google Suite Users (Project, People, Activity, Event Mgt!)

All right, hi everybody and welcome to my video on Google Tasks, uh, tips for using this at a higher level. My name again is Randy Dean, popularly known as the Email Sanity Expert. And what's interesting is I just made a video on how to more strategically use your Outlook task manager. And so many of you are probably sitting here going, wait, why are you using both Outlook Tasks and Google Tasks? And the answer to that question is I teach both. I've actually been for a number of years now, uh, teaching people how to better utilize their key productivity tools inside of Microsoft Outlook, but I've also been teaching people how to use Google productivity tools for several years now, from even before it was called Google Suite. And so because of that, I like to sort of when I share these strategies and tips, share both ways. So if you happen to also be an Outlook user, you might want to go check out the videos I've created on Outlook Tasks. But this is for the Google users, so let's get in and talk about this. Now, the Google Tasks tool is— it's solid. It could certainly be a big part of anyone's key productivity tools. And to just give you a little bit of knowledge, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to actually turn off my camera in this video because it's going to constantly be getting in the way when I do this. So I'm going to turn off the video. I'll turn it back on when we get to the end of the session, but I want you to be able to see what I'm doing clearly and easily on the screen. And so, um, what I want to share with you real simple is that it's right here. See, this is my Gmail inbox, and over here is the Google Task Manager. So I can just click on this and open up Google Tasks. And by the way, if you have the Calendar tab open You can do the same thing right here. There's Tasks also. And so notice that on both of these panels you can have your task list easily available to see. Now one of the things I want to share with you here, which is sort of interesting, is remember that if you happen to have a dual monitor setup at your workstation, you could have your calendar on one screen and then just go to the tab for your inbox, pick it up and drag it over to your other screen. And then think about what you've got. You've got on your one screen calendar and task list, and on your other screen you've got your email and task list, or your email and Notepad. That's Google Keep right there. Now, I'm not going to do a video on Google Keep right now. I've done another video on Google Keep that you can check out at your convenience, but I want to focus on the task function. Now, one of the things that I wanted to share with you is that, um, you can also get the related app The app that Google recommends is called Google Tasks.

Surprise, surprise.

It's available on both the App Store and on Google Play, and if you use your email username for Gmail as well as your password when you bring on the Google Tasks app, it's going to sync up whatever you put in this task manager over here on your phone or tablet and vice versa. So whatever you add to your phone in the task app will be added to your Google Tasks here, and the same For anything you add here, it will show up on your phone. Now, um, let's talk a little bit about how you can make this thing work. Now, one of the things that you can do is you can actually create multiple tasks— task lists. So I just hit this little down arrow, and it shows me all of the different task lists that I have created. And I can come to right here to hit Create New List. Now, what's interesting about this— I want to come back up to this to share something with you. This is something that I learned by trial and error, but you can— I can save you some time. If you haven't created lists yet, I would recommend that you might want to consider making the very first list that you create called exclamation point today. And there's a specific reason. The very first list you create in your Task List Manager becomes your default list. As a matter of fact, let me show you a little something here. If I click on this And then I come over here inside of here. Notice this, this one they won't even let you delete because it's your default list. All of the other lists that I've created, I could delete and change. Now I could rename it, but I can't delete it because it's my primary task list. And for me, my Today list is my primary task list.

What do I need to get done today?

But notice that you can also make a whole bunch of other lists inside of here. I've got lists inside of here for things like my key projects and sub-projects, my key clients, my key vendors, my key activities, my key events, my key people. I've even got a couple personal. There's my honey-do list. Down here is my workout, uh, activities list. Um, you know, I've got some stuff in here that's related to different projects and actions that I'm working on. So you can make as many or as few lists as you would like. Make the lists that match your key projects. And then the beauty of this is when you have this set up, you can create tasks in each one of these lists. You can have tasks inside of a bunch of different lists. And by doing that, what that allows you to do is sort of build yourself, in essence, a little bit of prioritization within your structure. And, and when I say that, here's what I mean. I said that my today list is my task list of things I'd like to get done today. I don't like this list to be too crazy long, and the reason I don't like it to be too crazy long is because the longer your task list is for today, the less likely it is you're actually going to get it done. It creates stress. And so what I would much rather do is, is move tasks that I don't need to get done today into one of these other lists, because by moving it into the other list, I know it's been taken care of.

I know I'm going to see it again.

We'll talk about why in just a moment. But by having it in one of these other lists, it reduces my stress and increases my focus for today. Now I do want you to notice one. I have one interesting list down here called @WaitingOn. Let me tell you what this one's for. Does anybody owe you anything? And what I would recommend that you put inside of this list are the things that people owe you. And when you create the task, Basically put in who it is, what they owe you, and when they owe it to you. And what we're gonna talk about in just a moment is my process for making sure that you don't miss these things. But by having that list, you'll always know who owes you what, and by knowing who owes you what when, you'll know when you need to maybe nudge them a little bit to get your stuff on time. All right, now the other thing that, um, I would recommend that you do—

I want to sort of go in and show you quickly how you create an add tasks to the list.

So I'm gonna go back up here and click on my Today view again.

Notice that I have this test email to show you how to do conversions. I want to show you something. Google has made it super easy to turn an email into a task. So let's do that right now. I'm going to click on this email.

Now watch what I can do. If I click on the email, hold the click, I can drag and drop.

Now many of you that have used Outlook in the past will see a strong familiarity with what I just did. That's one of the key things in Microsoft Outlook also, is to be able to drag and drop. To create a new task. Now this is it right here. See, notice it has the exact same subject line.

There's the task.

But now notice this, I can come in here and edit the task and put in and change the details. Show people— shoe people— show people how to make new task.

And if I wanted to, I could move this to a different list.

Perchance maybe I want to put this in one of my other lists like eBook, or I can also come in and add a date and time. If I wanted to make it today, I could set the date. I could even set time and turn on an alarm if I wanted so that it'll pop up on my screen. I can set a repeating task if I'd like. Is this something that's going to happen every week or every month? You can get that kind of stuff set up. The other thing that you can do is— notice this, they've added some layers— you can add notes. If you want additional notes beyond what you put in the subject line. And you can even add subtasks to the main task, which means honestly you could potentially lay out the entire project plan for something inside of one of these task items. And this is super cool— if you make an email or a task from an email, look what it does. It gives you a link back, which means you can click this and quickly jump into the email. So that means you don't have to go searching for the email when you're doing the task. You can just click the link and it's going to bring the email right back up on your screen, which is super cool and useful. But now I want to show you something else. Since I'm in here, let me show you something. If you have the email open, notice this button right here. This is new, by the way. They just added this recently. This is Add to Tasks. But I want to go back to the main screen and show you something else here too. Whoa, wait, it took me into the wrong place. Let's go into my inbox. That was weird. I think it took me into Promotions or something. I can also click right here on the checkbox, and that also gives me the button for Add Tasks. So either way, I can make a new task. And if I click here now, notice that it's going to add that new task. And I can jump back out of here, and you'll see there it is again. There's that new task. Now the other thing that you can do, which is interesting, is you don't have to make it from an email. You can just come up here and click that button right there. Add Task, and then what it's going to do is it's going to make a task. And you can show details of new task and then come over here and hit the little editing button and put in some additional comments, change the list that it's in, add your date and time, make it a set time when you want it to pop up, turn on a repeat. You can do all the things I just showed you. Um, so there's multiple ways that you can make the tasks if you need to. I want you to be comfortable with what your capabilities are with how you do this, and in terms of creating tasks either by using the drag and drop option or by just simply using the checkbox and task button at the top.

Now, with all of this basic information— creating your lists, knowing how to make tasks, knowing how to convert emails into tasks— hey, by the way, Converting emails into tasks. Watch this little bonus tip for you. Watch this. Come up to these three dots when the checkbox is on.

You can also—

actually, not here, you got to open it. My apologies, I'm wrong about that. Let's open the email. This is what I want to show you. Under the three dots, create event. That's how you can make a calendar item based off of your email. Okay, and watch this. If you want to add somebody to contacts, just put your mouse over the sender's name and leave it there for a second. I'm already in my own contact database, but right here it would say Add to Contacts. So a couple little bonus tips if you aren't familiar. Yes, it's super easy in Gmail to make an email into a task item, a calendar item, or a contact item. So just remember that you have that capability. Now let's dive in and talk for a minute about how I recommend you now incorporate and use this tool as part of your Productivity daily planning process. Now, if you've attended my sessions on Taming the Email Beast in the past, you'll know one of the key things that I tell people is don't start your day in your inbox, because that's like sort of like opening up your laptop and saying, come on out, squirrels. So what I recommend instead is start your day in your calendar, and then don't just look at today's calendar, look ahead a week or so and see what's coming up. Now you'll see we're coming off the Thanksgiving holiday when I'm doing this video. I got a pretty light calendar, which means I could potentially add in a couple items here for things that I need to work on. Most of the time my calendar is much more busy than this. This is a week I'm going to get a lot of work done, which means I'll be spending a lot of time over here in my task list. But look today, look ahead a few days, see what's coming, see if there's anything you need to get ready for. For instance, I've got this webinar on Tuesday. I could add a task, get handouts for webinar SECC, and perhaps I want to make a due date for this one of tomorrow and hit OK. And once I do that, if I back out now, now notice that this one is going to say today, tomorrow, even though it's in the today task. These are all the ones that I didn't put a due date on. Why do they not have a due date? I want to talk about that real quick. These are things that I don't really need to get done today. I would just like to get done today. And so I recommend you be careful with due dates in your task list. That can create extra stress and pressure. And what I'm recommending for people to do instead is only put due dates on the ones that really have to be done by a certain date and time. If it's just something you want to get done, you could leave it as a no-day task. You'll still see it. But it'll be down below, whereas the ones that are most important, highest priority, will be up near the top, which is better anyway. You know, I always tell people, if you get 3 of the things done that you really need to get done today and nothing else, that's better than getting 7 things done that don't really matter. And so it's— this is one way that you can sort of prioritize your task list via the use of due dates. Now, one other thing that I want you to do is After you look at your calendar today and a few days in advance, that's when you come over here and deep dive your list. Now, noticing that today is not that busy of a day, I want to take a look first at the length of my today task list. That's still a pretty long task list. So let me show you what I can do here. One, this event isn't coming up for a little while, so I can take this one and hit edit. Now watch what I'm going to do. I'm going to move it from this list to my— hey, what, look at this crazy list idea— tomorrow. That's my procrastination list. So if your today list is too long but you still want to see it maybe in the next day or two, just throw it on your tomorrow list. Now I'm going to come back here. I just made this list shorter.

Let's do the same thing.

Smartphone handouts file. This one I'm actually going to move into—

let's take a look down here.

Webinar series. So I'm going to move that one to webinar series. And let me see, um, the article on OneNote tips, that's not critical for today. I'm going to move that one into my ebook list and move that out. And now what you just saw me do was procrastinate. This list I felt was a little too long for today. I didn't want it to be too overwhelming, so I took a few things that weren't mission critical And I just moved them. I didn't get rid of them. I moved them out of the today list so they're less of a distraction and they don't create that unnecessary extra stress and pressure. But now let's take this one step further. Like I said, you start your day looking at your calendar today and maybe a few days in advance. See what's coming, see if there's anything you need to get ready for. Go into today's task list, look at what you really need to get done, what you'd like to get done. If that's too much, maybe move a few of these things.

But then here's the final thing I want you to do. I want you to make sure your key projects and people are incorporated in today's task list too.

So what you can do is quickly jump into a list.

Is there anything in here? Nope, nothing there. Wait a minute, what about my ebook?

Anything in here? Yes, I do want to download that text today, so I'm going to move it from ebook up to today..

And now see, by doing that, I just told myself that I really want to get this thing done today, download full text. And if I really want to prioritize it, remember the second step is I could give it today's due date and then back out, and now it's going to be up here near the top of my list.

And do this for all of your lists.

So what I want you to do is just quickly jump into your different lists and ask yourself, Anything in here that I need to move? Nope. Then you go to the next list. Anything in here I need to move up to today? Nope.

And well, you know what, maybe I should get the bikes taken in.

Let's open this one up and move it back to today. We got some bikes that we want to take in at the end of the season for a quick tune-up before the winter. Well, I got that one moved to today, and now bikes taken in, there it is. And so what I want you to do is start your day. This should only take you a few minutes, but what you do is you start your day looking at your calendar, looking ahead a few days on your calendar, maybe getting ready for something coming up, maybe blocking some time for something really important. E-newsletter. Save. That's an appointment with me.

As a matter of fact, watch this. I'm going to come in here and Actually, I want to hit Edit and change the color.

The newsletter, ah, like green.

That's good.

Now save. And now I've got a color-coded calendar.

Okay, and then come into my task list for today, look at it, see if it's too long for how much time is available today.

If so, move some things back into their holding lists. But then go through each of your holding lists for your different projects, people, client events, and make sure that— are there any items in here that need to be moved up to today?

It's easy.

It's powerful. Can I share with you an even easier option though that some of you might like better? I mean, I really like this. I, I don't want to— I don't want to downplay this at all. I think that this tool works great. I think this is a good time for me to bring my video back up. This— I think the system works really really well if you're handling multiple projects, multiple people, multiple activities, multiple events. You can manage your work, you can manage your day utilizing this tool, having it ready for you to use inside of both your inbox and inside your calendar. You've always got access to what your priorities are as well as your specific list for everything you want to be working on. However, I also understand that not everybody's going to want a system this crazy, uh, it, you know, this complicated, this complex. Maybe I'm not using the right term. I think complex is a good term. Here's what I mean. Notice that you could also do this. Let's go for simple. You can go into KEEP. Okay, let me show you something.

Now, by the way, we When you open up Keep, there's this little widget that allows you to blow it up to a full-screen view. And then when you get into the full-screen view, you can come in here to take a note. But let me look at this little option right here, New Note, and click on that, and you can make a list. And you could make this Today's Tasks, and then you could make a list for the things you want to get done today. And you could also make projects for a project list. eBook project task list.

And you can make separate lists for each of your different things that you're working on.

There's a few—

there's—

what is it?

There's more than one way to skin a cat. That's the weirdest phrase.

But I hope to never actually have to use that. But what I'm trying to share here is that perhaps what I just showed you, if you think it's too complicated, Keep is a viable option. You should get the Keep app on your phone, and you could use the Keep app for managing and building your task list. Now, the one problem with the Keep app though, you won't be able to use that slick drag-and-drop capability to make a task from an email.

You'd have to do like basically a manual copy and paste to be able to take information from an email and put it into your Keep task list.

But, you know, if all you want is just a quick little checkbox thing that you can do on your phone as you're working today maybe that's the better option. Use the option that works best for you.

All right, I'm going to close this thing up. I, I hope this gives you a much better and deeper understanding of how you might be able to incorporate this Google Tasks capability as part of your productivity, project management, people management, planning system that is inside of your entire Google Suite of tools. By the way, one little final note I'll share here. What I'm sharing right here are tips for primarily sort of an individual performer, somebody just trying to get their own work done each day, maybe with a smidge bit of coordination with some other people. If you're doing big-time active project management, you might want to consider upgrading. If you got multiple people, multiple resources, multiple vendors, multiple deliveries, all this kind of stuff happening on a bigger scale, there are much more robust tools, things like Asana and Trello and Microsoft Project and things like that. You might want to take a look at one of those if you're doing that kind of stuff. This isn't really built for that. This is built for you figuring out what you need to work on next on a normal work day. So use the right tool for the situation. If this isn't robust enough, you might want to step it up another level. All right, let's close this thing off. Um, once again, I'm Randy Dean. I want to share with you that I actually I have a new Patreon page which you can go check out, but I've also created this video. Some of you may be seeing this video on my YouTube channel, but I'm also going to be taking this video and putting it into my Time Management in the Cloud online e-learning program for people that use Gmail and Google Suite. Um, so I'll give you a link to my e-learning channel, uh, in the comments if you want to go take a look at that program. And with that, I'd just like to say thank you for your time. If you'd like to learn more about me, you can go out to my website and click on the e-learning tab to get to that e-learning channel. If you like this video and you'd like to see more of this kind of content, please hit like on the video and consider subscribing to my channel. And, um, the final thing I'll say to you is if I have a whole series of little productivity PDF tip sheets, uh, on things like time management, email management, how to better use Google and Gmail, how to Better Use Microsoft Outlook, Smartphones and Tablets, you know, things like that. They're all little 2 to 4 page tip sheets. If you'd like to get access to those for additional learning and personal and professional development, send me an email randy@randalldean.com and just put YouTube PDF in the subject line and I'll send you a whole bucket of stuff to go through. Enjoy! Thanks for your time. I'm going to end this. Bye now.