Google Tasks, Google's version of a to-do list app and today's video, I'm gonna show you what it is, where to find it and I also wanna highlight the pros and cons of using this tool.
Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.
And in today's video, I wanna give you a full tour.
We're gonna start with the web based version of Tasks and then move on to the mobile version so you know where to find things and also some of the things that you might wanna watch out for.
Google Calendar
So let's get things started here in Google Calendar.
Why the calendar? Because probably this is where you may have first been introduced to Google Tasks or seen the icon.
In the right hand side of the bar, this little side menu, you can gain access to Google Tasks.
And this is going to expand this little menu.
Now of course, you can access other things such as Google Keep, and when you're in other Google applications such as Gmail, you can even access the calendar.
But of course, today we are talking about Tasks, a very simple to-do list manager but that may be exactly what you're looking for here.
So here I have a couple of sample tasks, which I've added already.
In order to add a task, it's very, very simple.
Just click the plus or this field at the top of the bar.
I need to give Bill a call today.
I can hit enter on my keyboard and immediately, I can start adding an additional task as well, about that meeting, yeah, later today.
Now, there's more than just this simple one word task.
As you can see, to the right there is an edit details icon.
And here I can add a brief description of what I'd like to see, some further details that I'd like to add to this particular task.
I'll show you how that looks on the previous screen in just a moment.
You can also have multiple lists.
So here is a dropdown. I'm currently in my My Tasks but I actually have another list called A New Project.
Now I really like this feature so you can have more than just one task list that you're working with.
I'm gonna keep this one in My Tasks.
Below that, I can add a date. Let's put that to a couple of days out.
And then last but not least, something which is crucial for most of us, is the ability to add subtasks.
So I'm gonna keep this really simple here.
I'm gonna say sub one and, let's say, sub two.
Really, really simple stuff here at the bottom.
Now, the other nice thing here is that you can keep going on if you want to have more and more subtasks but let me show you how this looks on the previous screen.
So now that I'm done adding some further details, I'm gonna go back here.
So here you can see the brief description.
It's nice and visible.
We have the due date here, which is also pretty visible and we can see our subtasks down below.
But the one thing that I wanna point out when it comes to subtasks, and this may be either a pro or con, depending on how you view these things, is how you want to view your tasks here.
So if we go up to the more option, right beside the add a task, we can either choose to view it by my personal order, right, the order that I would like to see them in, or by date.
So I'm gonna select date for just a moment here.
So let's see.
There's that give Bill a call option and you can see there's some separation.
We've got my subtasks here down below with no date, right, because I didn't add a date for these items.
I can go in and add their dates as well.
If I change this back to my order, now you can see my subtasks are nicely nested beneath this one.
If I drag this one down, those subtasks are gonna go with it.
Of course, you may have, if you sort this by date, I guess that makes sense if you have a different date for these subtasks, then you would want them sorted that way as well.
So if I hit the icon button here, again, I can add further details for those subtasks.
I couldn't do that when I first added them but once they're created, I can give them an additional due date.
I can even have them assigned to a different task list.
All right, a couple of things I want to point out here within the task.
Let's create a new list.
So here you can switch back between different types of lists.
I'm gonna go to my New Project list for just a moment here.
So this is a completely different set of tasks.
And as you're checking things off it's pretty simple, just hover over these circled bars here.
I can check this one off.
This one, you can see, as I hover over, I have a couple of other things down below which are also being ready to be checked off.
That's because, those ones, are the subtasks of this one down below.
This is the parent task, the one that is up above.
If I click on edit details, you can see that this is the highest level one and I've got two things down below.
But if I check the parent off, everything else below it will be checked off as well.
At the very bottom of the screen, you can see that there is a completed list.
And why don't I just check something else off here just to add a few more things to that completed list.
So this is where everything goes in your completed list and you can expand this, see what's going on down below.
If I want to undo a task, I simply need to check this or select this check box and it's gonna bring it back to my list up above.
If I go back, this relates to that completed list, I can go down here and say delete all completed tasks.
So as that completed list racks up with a number of tasks, and there's too many to review or you don't need them anymore, you can always go in here and delete all of those tasks.
But there's one other key thing I wanna share with you here in the calendar and that is when I added that first task…
Let's go back to my My Tasks.
This, uh… Bill, give Bill a call.
That's the one I added here.
You'll notice that something was added to the calendar as well.
And this is a really nice feature is that you don't necessarily have to have your task list open at all times but you can access or see those tasks here at the top of your calendar.
As long as your tasks calendar is visible, here's the little check box here under your My Calendars, you can see those tasks directly on your calendar.
I can open it up.
I can even mark it as complete, directly from My Calendars.
So it's nice to see that association between the two.
But here is a big warning.
And I'm gonna get to this again when we look at the mobile view, is that tasks do not yet show up in the mobile version of Google Calendar.
Reminders certainly do but when it comes to tasks, you're gonna have to use the Tasks app.
And we're gonna get to that in just a moment.
Gmail
Now I'm gonna quickly jump over to Gmail for just a second because as I mentioned, you can access tasks in a variety of Google programs.
Everything here is exactly the same.
I'm just accessing it from Gmail.
But what I did want to point out is that when you are dealing with email within Gmail, you can immediately add that email as a task.
So let's say that I've got this email and I need to reply to it or I want to reply to it later, I wanna create a task.
So simply by selecting the options here, the little three dots, I can select add to tasks.
And over here on the right, you can see it's just gonna copy the subject line over here but I've also got a direct link to that email.
Now I can always go in and change that title, right, if that subject doesn't make a lot of sense.
But the great thing is that it creates that link to that particular email.
So if I am back in the calendar, for example, or how about this, even other Google applications such as Google Drive, if I'm here in Google Drive and I wanna access that email, all I have to do is click on this little icon and I will go directly back to this email.
All right, let's take a tour now of Tasks on our mobile device.
Mobile App
All right, so here we are in Google Tasks on my mobile device.
And you can see it looks almost identical to what we saw in the web based version.
And I love when Google or any developer does this.
It makes it so much easier to navigate when you don't have to think differently or go to new places to find out what you're looking for in that mobile version.
Even that first task that we see there.
You can see that I still have that link to that email, all the same functionality exists here.
Now in order to add a new task, you want to go to the bottom of the screen and select add new task, that blue button.
They keep it very simple here as well.
If you wanna add something really quickly here.
You can just do the text based version and hit save or I can hit this plus button and I can add that description or due date.
You see how that slides out there.
But if you don't need that additional detail, I can just hit this new task and immediately it's gonna be added to My Task list.
There it is, at the top of the list.
In the bottom right hand screen, this is where you'll find the ability to sort by order, date, you can rename your list or delete all completed tasks.
So all the same functionality that you need is available to you right here within the mobile app.
Well, with that, I would love to hear from you.
Are you a Google Tasks user?
And if so, what do you think?
What has your experience been with Google Tasks?
If not, have I convinced you to use it or I'd like to know, what's your preferred to-do list manager?
Be sure to leave a comment and your answers down below.
Thank you so much for watching today's video.
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Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.
