GMail Getting Things Done – a poor man’s version

I really like the concept of Getting Things Done. I’m also a fan of Inbox Zero. Well, at least try to be. Here’s how I implement GTD using my gmail account…

First I create four labels:
label:g-action
label:g-waiting-on
label:g-some-day
label:g-finished

Now I can tag emails in my inbox when I view them with the keyboard shortcut l->a for action, w for waiting-on and so forth.

I make a habit of reading, deleting or tagging each email that comes through my inbox. Hence I get closer to Inbox Zero.

I also use the Quick Links feature available through GMail Labs.

I then create links to the 4 labels by searching on the syntax described previously.

There are of course plenty of apps and additional plugins for specific browsers that achieve the same thing. I just like this approach because it is generally OS/browser independent which means I can take it with me from workplace to workplace (provided they let me access my gmail account of course!)