Firefox + Gmail = GTD
March 22nd, 2008 (11:11am) Mike Gunderloy 7 Comments
There are certainly plenty of alternatives for living the Getting Things Done lifestyle out there, from dedicated web sites to client-side applications to add-ins for your email program. But how about a GTD application that leverages web sites that you’re already using? That’s the premise of GTDInbox, a Firefox add-on that implements GTD in your GMail account.
After installing GTDInbox, you’ll see nothing different about your Firefox – until you visit the GMail site. Then you’ll get a GTD Dashboard pane above your regular Inbox area (as well as some other modifications, such as an area to easily work with the labels on the current message). GTDInbox works by leveraging GMail’s own label and search capabilities, mixing in some new UI and some conventions to make it all work together.
Sorting your messages into projects and contexts is as simple as adding labels starting with “P/” and “C/” (which also work nicely with the way that GMail’s IMAP interface sets up subfolders). As you build these up, GTDInbox will track them in your dashboard area, giving you one-click access to all the mails related to a project or a context as a fast search result.
Want to use GTDInbox as a task manager? Just send yourself an email tagged with S/Action and go from there. There are other status labels to cover things like “Next Action” and “Waiting On” – again, all contributing to the central GTD tenet of seeing only the information you need right now.
GTDInbox is fast, free, and unobtrusive when you don’t feel like using it. The integration is slick enough that it’s hard to tell where GMail ends and the add-on begins. If your workflow revolves around your email, and you’re a GMail user, this could take your ability to focus up a notch.
7 Comments Post your own comment
Calaelen says: March 22nd, 2008 11:53am
Only works in english (US?) language modus. As soon as I turn on my german language, everything from the GTD Addon disappears :-(
Jack Keller says: March 22nd, 2008 9:18pm
I like this approach, seems like it may be easily workable for most people! I had went through a round of GTD testing on my end and came up with a local copy of GTD TiddlyWiki for my answer but I’m always looking for something better!
Robin says: March 22nd, 2008 9:55pm
I wish this could work along with Gmail skins addons.
John Bradford says: March 23rd, 2008 3:28am
I’ve been a GTDinbox fan for a while – the updated GMail 2.0 caused all sorts of pain until Andy got an early beta out (that’s why it only works on the US Language option).
As soon as Google roll out GMail 2.0 for the other Languages this’ll work fine.
Only thing I prefer from the earlier version was listing projects/contexts/etc horizontally at the top of a message, rather than vertically in a navigation dashboard. Otherwise this is a brilliant implementation of GTD.
Trevor Lee says: April 23rd, 2008 6:35am
I am a really big fan of this, thanks for writing about it.
Derek Conjar says: April 28th, 2008 7:49pm
I’ve tried many different systems for GTD, including Nozbe, Toodledo, RTM, Vitalist, Omnifocus, Daylite, EasyTask, and quite a few more.
I’m a big fan of GTDinbox, although the new release doesn’t get along with RTM. I think Remember the Milk is ideal for task management within Gmail’s interface, while Gmail can be used to manage data, customer relationships, and just about everything else. I would love to see a fix to the issues with RTM and GTDInbox.
Right now, I’ve temporarily settled on Nozbe, which I like because it is very simple, but dislike because it is very “evil” in the cost / project, and doesn’t allow you to archive projects.
If you could edit e-mails and group e-mails into conversations, Gmail would be perfect for task management, as well.
Mani says: June 2nd, 2008 1:08pm
Thanks. I am familiar with the GTD method but I find GTDInbox rather non-intuitive. I wish there was a short UTube video that showed step by step usage…ie. how do i label incoming mail as a resource etc.
Or I really hope some good samaritan will crank up a manual of how to use the features.