Blaugust Brainstorming – Using Gmail Tasks

It’s brainstorming week at Blaugust – and rather than tackle that big ole topic, I’d like to talk about jotting down ideas as they come to mind. Specifically, a tool I’ve taken to using myself – Tasks within Gmail.

Now, if you already have an app or a program where you drop your to-dos or ideas, great! But if you’re like me, most of these apps didn’t stick. I’d set up an account at something like Evernote, and even download the phone app, but then forget all about it because it’s just not in a place I think to go daily.

However, I’m a Gmail user and it’s pretty typical for me to have my Gmail open on my browser 99.9% of the time I’m on my computer. So when I noticed the little Task button on my Gmail sidebar, I explored it… and found a list-making tool that became pretty effective for me.

It’s not as fancy as some of the other tools out there, but the fact that it exists in a space that I’m looking at several times a day makes it effective. I keep notes about posts I want to come back to read, reminders about various gaming and IRL things, and… when Blaugust rolled around, I made a task to keep up with ideas for blog posts as they came to me.

It’s really simple to create a task with several subtasks, set a date/time, and even have different task lists. Individual subtasks are hidden when you check them off, as is the main task when you finish it. There’s also a mobile app version of the task list, though I’ve never actually messed with it. I tend to be a PC person when working in a browser and in mail.

So, as ideas come to you during this month, be sure to jot them down! If you don’t already use an app for this, and you are a Gmail user like I am, see if the Google Tasks can help you out with it.

Or, well, you could always use a notebook, I suppose. 😉

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