I want to like Google tasks, really I do.
But, try as I might, I can't bring myself to like them. Or use them regularly. They are just so limited wrt other task management systems.
Here, I will take notes. Although I may just as often start a new blog tem.
9 comments:
Google Tasks understands subtasks. Yay!
Although it does not understand that a task may be a subtask to more than one task. Which is not quite the same as task dependencies.
Google Tasks can appear in Google Calendar. Yay!
But they appear as points in time. What I want is for tasks to keep reappearing in the task list, every day until completed, or deferred.
(For that matter, I want tasks that recur - sometimes at a fixed schedule, e.g. once a week, sometimes after a time delay - e.g. I can't go back to get my allergy shots once a week if I slipped an appointment, there must be N days of separation.)
GTasks has subtasks. Yay!
But AFAIK there is no way to collapse a task's subtask tree.
Also: for subtasks I typically only want to see the next steps, the next actions in the GTD sense. Not all the subtasks, just the ones that I need to work on next. AFAIK no way to do that in GT.
Google Tasks cannot operate offline on my Android mobile, AFAIK. That makes it much less useful in Oregon near the coast and mountains.
Offlineability is one of those utility aspects that I want to be ubiquitous.
Can't seem to change list a task belongs to in the mobile friendly tasks XHTML.
If you create subtasks, you can mark all subtasks done by clicking on the parent task. Yay!
Boo!@: but if you click by accidenbt, and then unclick, the completion stats of all of the subtasks is erased. Hiss!
I would luike to record the history - when a task was create, when it was marked complete. etc.
Editing, versioning, is another of those things that I want to be ubiquitous utilities.
Except for the GUI, on Android and PC. Google Tasks is less useful, less reliable, than a text file.
If Google Drive could handle text file conflicts, that would be the way to go. (deally with an Android App interface to such a text file.)
you are using canvas view right?
Thanks Bryan. I wasn't using Google Tasks Canvas view. I am now.
It makes things better, but many of my comments still apply. E.g. I still want tasks to appear in more than one list, and/or have labels/categories on tasks.
Anyway.... why is the canvas view not linked to from any of the other views? Basically because Google's second tier stuff like tasks grows, but seems not to have an overall design.
Seems to me that Google is missing an opportunity by not pushing tasks. If I put "buy PC for my daughter for Xmas" on a task list, it seems to me that that is a great opportunity for advertising. Assuming privacy issues handled.
Similarly, if I put "buy yogurt" on my shopping list... I have elsewhere discussed why tasks and to-do lists and checklists have a lot in common, mainly differing in default UI and heavy-weightness.
BTW, thanks, this is why I do this stream of consciousnes blog. Occasionally I get help.
Thanks again, BB.
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