In my article, “Goodbye Exchange, Outlook & Blackberry — Welcome Google & Android”, I discuss the overall switch. In this article, I discuss one area that doesn’t transition so smoothly: Tasks.
I have been using Outlook Tasks with Categories for about a decade. My basic practice is to capture the task, priority, category(s), and detail notes, if any. Once I finish a task, I mark it completed and hide it from view. Most of the time, I would print these out and use it as a “scratch pad” for all the little jotted notes of things that need to get done. I would also work the list as appropriate.
Google Tasks Relative Weaknesses to Outlook Tasks
Here are the list of features that I consider relatively weak to Outlook:
- No priority sorting
- No ability to have a task in multiple lists (I am using google list to be my analog to an outlook category).
- Limited control on reporting overall on tasks.
Importing Outlook Tasks
There does not appear to be any built-in tools to import tasks. So here is what I did:
- Sorted my Outlook Tasks by Category.
- For each Outlook Category, I created a Google Task List.
- Select all the subjects (task name) in Outlook for a single category and pasted it into Google Tasks. It will intelligently crate a new tasks for every line item.
- For each Outlook tasks that I had notes, I had to one-by-one cut-and-paste the notes into Google tasks notes.
This really wasn’t too bad. Fortunately, I was not using any of the date tracking mechanisms as that would have been another field that I would have had to manually copy over.
Getting to your Google Tasks on Android
I am still evaluating two tools to create and manage tasks on my Nexus One Android 2.2 device:
Each look like they will work and I am satisfied that their synchronization mechanisms get the job done. I’ll write more after some more use.
I must though mention that I really like the 3Banana Notes from https://catch.com. The tagging mechanism is similar to Twitter. Just add # to any string and you have tagged the note. The mechanism is fast and makes it possible for a note or task to be tagged to multiple categories. Also, the Android Widget is fast to add a new note/task. But I elected to not go with it because I want to stay close to the Google interface and use the built-in task manager.
Hi Marty, I saw your comment on working around not being able to see all G tasks on another page, i.e. 1. Go to Sites.
2. Create a Page.
3. Add a Task Widget.
From that page, you can see all your tasks and the different tasks within your custom lists.
I got stuck on “Add a Task Widget”. Can you pls explain how to do this? I can add the official G Tasks Gadget, but it does not display all tasks at once, regardless of list.
The sooner google enhances its Tasks with reminders and snooze, plus this Display all, the better.
Thanks.
Linda,
I can see a list of my Task categories on the left. When I click one of those categories, I can see all the tasks. Are you able to get this behavior? Should I publish a screen shot of what I was able to create?
I got it to work. Had to use the CntrlA feature. It worked great. Thank you very much, Marty!!!
https://import-tasks.appspot.com/ is less cumbersome, but not perfect. I had to quickly migrate from Win7/outlook/Android to MacOS/noOutlook/Android, no time to reenter each task. gogtasks and google-tasks-porter were failing to import anything in their format. You will need to edit your CSV from Outlook format to import-tasks format, or use the exe provided by import-tasks.appspot.com – if your win system is still running 🙁