Information Efficiency ? A better way of using Gmail for GTD

来源:百度文库 编辑:神马文学网 时间:2024/04/25 18:48:09
(Thank you, lifehackers! This post is more than one yearold. It appears that automatic labelling is no longer working withDraft. It was working when I wrote this post. I stopped using the Gmailfor GTD a few weeks later. I am now usingvoo2do ,google desktop todo plugin andWikipad.But I am still looking for a perfect solution of integratingemails+todos in wiki (for PIM) + other todos + delicious to read +desktop files to read.)
I have been trying GTD for some time including outlook plugins,tadalist and some wiki-based ones, such as the recentBackpack andGTDTiddlyWiki. I was mainly using myWikka wiki(leveraging its dynamic category feature) for work-related complexthings and tadalist (later Backpack) for minor things. However, I amnot completely happy with any of them for the following reasons:
I want seamless email integration. Many of my todos are related to emails. All the existing wiki-ones can not satisfy this.
I want web-based universal access. Outlook or entourage allows you to turn emails into todos by one click. But you can not easily access these todos from multiple machines.
I want to be able to associate notes with an ongoing todo. Not all todo items are easy one liners with a tick in front of it. Backpack provides structured wiki. However, notes can’t be assoicated with individual items on the list.
Marking off or moving a todo in wiki is not very natural. It involves striking out things, moving things to other positions or other pages.
Then I readsome articles on using gmail for GTD.But I think it can be improved. I choose to use Draft for my own Todosinstead of sending myself an email and label it later. The main reasonsare here: When a draft is saved in Gmail, a filter will also be applied automatically! I use a unique short string(3 character) in a subject line to indicate a potentially long full lable and let a gmail filter to apply the lable automatically. This is closer to the way of adding a normal todo in other applications. Compared to sending an email to yourself and applying a label manually, it is much more convenient and natural.
I often attach additional information to an onging big todo item. If I send myself a todo, it is hard to attach further information without fowarding and relabeling AGAIN every time.
I can label an email to make a GTD todo. Thanks for the conversation feature in Gmail, all future emails related to the original one will be grouped and accessible using the GTD label.
When I am outside, I can use my 3G mobile to send myself a text/image/audio todo email. If certain unique string is in the subject line, the email can be automatically labeled with the right context.
I have been using this way for 2 weeks and I absolutely love how it works so far!!