I’ve put this off for so long!
I was thinking, nah. I don’t need yet another productivity tool. I’m happy with my setup as it is. Why would I install a Firefox extension? I keep my inbox mostly empty anyway. Erm… erm…
Well, truth is, I needed it. Bad. And as times get busier, I need it (and use it) more.
What’s GTDInbox, you ask? A simple Firefox extension, NOT. It’s an over-bloated piece of productivity pr0n that will transform your GMail inbox from an arid desert to a place David Allen would call home.
I don’t use all of its numerous features. But these things made me install it at home and at work:
- The ability to easily compose a personal e-mail, as a means to add a task / reminder for yourself, right there in your inbox. I used to do that all the time, but I don’t anymore because I use less mundane stuff to take care of my todos and reminders. But still, it’s great functionality.
- One-click mark as finished / archive of an e-mail. Enough said. I used to click, select relevant label from labels menu, then press ‘Archive’. Hardly a fun way to get done with tasks e-mails.
- The ability to pre-label e-mails, before sending them. So useful.
- When you mark e-mails as pending or as action, they don’t have to be marked as unread to have their count shown next to their status label. Essential.
- It made me transform my GMail inbox from an empty, normal inbox to what it needs to be nowadays: a work dashboard. It helps my keep my inbox to zero (not a difficult task, I assure you) and it keeps me from forgetting stuff and adding everywhere those ambiguous stars.
So GTDInbox it is. Even if I don’t use like, 70% of its features.
7 comments on this post
Constantinos Demetriadis #1
31.Oct.08
Truth is, I needed a task manager for my Gmail and found that Remember the milk offers one of the best solutions out there.
If task management is your primary use, then no need for any other over bloated plugins.
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/services/gmail/
jimeh #2
31.Oct.08
For me, this isn’t really an option. As I don’t use Firefox, aside from during web development testing. Nor do I use Gmail’s web-interface.
I swapped to using Gmail via IMAP and Apple’s Mail.app about 8 months ago, and I’ve never loved using email more. Before I almost used to forget that I could use email to communicate with people, cause it was just one more tab among the 20-120 tabs I’ve generally got open in Safari.
As for my task management, well, I’m still not really settled with a “good” solution. I’m currently using a combination of Things on the Mac and iPhone. And also iCal + iPhone, as it supports popup reminders, unlike Things (on the iPhone).
Personally, I hope that the iPhone version will eventually gain popup reminders (via Push Notifications or otherwise), and also get deeper iCal integration. What I mean is, currently all tasks in Things endup in iCal’s To-Do list. What I’d like is to the ability to set start-stop times for some tasks, as I use iCal as an overview of what I’ve done and when. It’s a visual overview which I believe Things would probably never support itself.
Bottom line, I dream of the bastard child of iCal and Things… lol
John Tsevdos #3
31.Oct.08
I might try it (never heard of it)…
gterez #4
31.Oct.08
The only thing that’s kept me from using it is the fear if I log on my Gmail account from another browser/computer I’ll see a mess of labels (I use quite a few labels already) and I’ll have a hard time making out where my messages are. For the same reason, I fear that I’ll have a hard time uninstalling it if I don’t eventually like it.
So what does your Gmail look like on a non-GTDInbox enabled browser?
Sugar #5
31.Oct.08
@gterez
It’s actually very neat in terms of messing with your GMail account.
You can check a simple screenshot with it disabled here:
http://idisk.mac.com/sugarenia/Public/Pictures/Skitch/Gmail_-_Inbox_-_zaxarenia%40gmail.com-20081102-193837.jpg
Nicolas #6
31.Oct.08
This tool sounds very interesting – thanks for writing about it. I will check it out.
There are many possibilities to improve the way we handle email besides the zero inbox policy. I made a collection of tips around email on the Time Management Master blog. Here is the link for the posts related to email.
http://memytime.wordpress.com/category/at-work/email-at-work-time-management/
Nicolas
Chinarut #7
31.Oct.08
I just installed GTDInbox yesterday and think it’s a great step forward. It does what it does well and just depends on “label management” so if you are away from Firefox – you can just do it manually and it’s not all that hard.
@Constantinos Demetriadis: does MTM handle GTD very well? I’ve looked at it again and again and it’s missing the idea of tracing next actions to projects – this is really critical and the foundation of GTD and making task lists manageable!