Google Tasks + Chrome = Superb ToDos

I’ll admit, I’m a Mac guy through and through, but for 8 hours of each weekday I am required to work on a Hodgman. My Industrial plasticy looking Dell Precision is actually pretty spot on with 6 gigs of RAM pushing the *infamous* 64 bit Windows Vista. Not only have I found ways to cope with my “dull little box preforming dull little tasks“, but with the help of co-worker @gabeanzelini, I’ve been able to very much enjoy my work flow as of late.

Here is a great little trick for making the best, most simple To-Do lists on your PC:

What You’ll need before you get going:

• A Gmail Account
• Google Chrome
• Optional - MaxTo

Here we go:

1. Open Google Chrome and navigate to your Gmail account.
2. Log into your Gmail account and click on ‘Setting‘ in the upper right menu.
3. Click on the ‘Labs‘ tab.
4. Find ‘Tasks‘ in the list of features and enable it and save your settings.
5. Because Google Tasks is built for your mobile device, a special URL is needed to access it from a regular web-browser on your computer. If you go to http://mail.google.com/tasks you’ll see why. Instead: visit https://mail.google.com/tasks/ig
6. Thanks to the thoughtful application window option in Chrome, which is designed to give a web application the appearance of a desktop application ( no browser toolbars ), you can click on  the paper icon in Chrome in the upper right and select ‘Create application shortcuts…‘
7. If you would like to actually create a shortcut to your to-dos, leave the desired box checked; otherwise, uncheck all boxes and Chrome will launch a new, clean looking window to run your tasks in! This window can be well managed sized way down to save screen real estate.
   

   Google Tasks in Google Chrome's Application Window

This is a great way to get a free, minimalistic to-do solution that leaves a great interface on your PC, while giving you the same interface on your Mobile device. ( Mobile users navigate to http://mail.google.com/tasks )

Go further ( I know, “Go further” sounds like one of those lame side notes in a high school textbook)

With the help of the genius application called MaxTo you can better manage window positioning on your PC. This is definitely not a requirement to run Google Tasks, but for me it helps immensely. With MaxTo I can designate a corner of my screen real estate just for Google Tasks. I also use MaxTo for other applications like Witty ( my current favorite desktop Twitter Client ) and Outlook (boo). I’ve been able to cut way down on annoying application switching. Download it. You’ll thank me for sure, and you may or may not send me some Turkish Delight.

I’d love to here some of your favorite to-do methods, or more generally, anything that helps make your PC experience more bearable.