GTD with Google Tasks
Google Tasks is already in your Gmail and your Calendar, which makes it the easiest place to jot a task down. It is a harder place to run Getting Things Done, because the method needs more than lists and dates.
You do not have to choose. Relay connects to Google Tasks, so you can keep capturing where you already do and run the system itself in an app built for it.
What GTD needs that Google Tasks leaves to you
| GTD needs | In Google Tasks |
|---|---|
| Contexts | No contexts or tags. People make one list per context, which splits projects across lists. |
| Projects with an outcome | A list or a task with subtasks can stand in, but there is no outcome, and nothing tells you a project has no next action. |
| Waiting For | A list you keep by hand, with no record of who you are waiting on or since when. |
| Someday/Maybe | Another list, sitting beside the live ones. |
| Weekly review | Up to you and a checklist somewhere else. |
| Energy | Not tracked, so you cannot ask for something easy at the end of a long day. |
None of that is a fault in Google Tasks. It is built to be simple, and it is. The trouble starts when you try to make simple lists carry a whole method, and the workarounds start costing more time than they save.
Keep Google Tasks for capture
Connect Google Tasks in Relay and choose which of your lists to bring in. From then on:
- Tasks from those lists arrive in your Relay Inbox, to be clarified like anything else you capture. Nothing is filed for you.
- A date from Google is offered as the task's scheduled date while you process it. It is only used if you keep it.
- Complete one of those tasks in Relay, or change its title, notes or scheduled date, and the change is written back to Google Tasks. Complete or edit it in Google and Relay follows. A due date you add in Relay stays in Relay.
- Relay checks Google Tasks every 15 minutes, and whenever you open the Inbox, so changes arrive without you pressing anything.
- Relay never creates new Google tasks, and never deletes anything in Google. If you delete a task in Google, its Relay copy moves to Trash, where you can restore it for 30 days.
So the task you added from Gmail on your laptop shows up in your Inbox, gets a context and a project in Relay, and when you tick it off, it is ticked off in Gmail too.
What Relay adds
- Contexts that filter Next Actions to what you can do where you are. How contexts work.
- Projects with an outcome, and a Stalled group for any project with no next action.
- Waiting For with the person and the date, Someday/Maybe, Agenda lists per person, and Reference.
- A guided weekly review that runs the steps in order, and a five-minute daily review.
- Google Calendar beside your actions, so Engage shows today's commitments above what you could do next.
Worth knowing first
- New tasks you make in Relay stay in Relay
- Google Tasks is a way in, not a mirror. If you want a task to appear in Gmail, add it in Google Tasks and let it come across.
- Google access is asked for separately
- Relay asks for Google Tasks and Google Calendar in two separate prompts. It works fully with neither connected, and you can disconnect either one at any time in Settings.
Connect Google Tasks to Relay
Sign in, open Settings, then Integrations, and connect Google Tasks. Your chosen lists start arriving in the Inbox straight away.
30 days free, no card needed. Start in your browser or install the app.