In the perpetual Gmail beta, task management or the to-do list has been sorely missing. Posted yesterday in The Official Gmail Blog, the Gmail team shared the details of the addition of this feature. As Guy Creese explained in an earlier blog, Google's solutions are still a tough sell to enterprises. The lack of task management in Gmail has been one of the key missing features that is required for an enterprise class e-mail solution. Entire enterprise time management and productivity practices, like David Allen's GTD (Getting Things Done), have been built around task management capabilities in enterprise e-mail.
Gmail's first iteration of task management is pretty "lightweight" - as described by the Gmail team in their blog. Once it is enabled (through Settings), a link is provided in the left hand column called "Tasks." Clicking the link opens a task list window in the lower right hand corner. Tasks are created by simply typing and hitting enter. You can indent (to create a visual sub-task), move up and down, and add details (such as a due date).
The most useful feature is the ability to convert e-mails to tasks. Select a message, go to More Actions > Add to Tasks and a task is created with the title of the e-mail. A link to the e-mail is provided below the task name that takes you to the message without closing the task window.
Overall, this is not a bad first iteration for task management in Gmail, but it is definitely still "lightweight."
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