Stay on top of your to-do list with this Gmail Tasks tip

Let’s say you just got an email from your book club asking you to choose the next thriller for the group to read. Or a message from your physics professor about an extra credit assignment recently landed in your inbox. You can add these emails directly to your Tasks to-do list with a few simple clicks.

What’s great about this feature is that when you visit your Tasks to-do list, there will be a button that takes you directly back to the email, in case you need a reminder about the context. That can save time you’d otherwise spend searching through your messages. (Then you can give Past You a mental high-five for making life that much easier for Present You.) Even better — you can add a date to your task, which will then allow it to show up on your calendar so you won’t forget.

Here’s how to add emails to your Tasks to-do list in Gmail

1. From your inbox, click on an email you'd like to add to your tasks. If you’re on your phone, make sure you’ve downloaded the Tasks app first.
2. Click the "Add to tasks" icon at the top of your inbox. If you don’t see this option, click on the More options icon (the three dots) and select “Add to tasks.”
3. Fill in the necessary information, including details and date/time.

It doesn’t get much simpler than that. But you can try an alternate method for adding emails to your Tasks to-do list on the web, too.

1. From your inbox, open the Tasks panel on the right.
2. Drag and drop a message from your inbox to the Tasks panel.
3. Fill in the necessary information.

From there, you can experiment with how to make this Tasks tip as useful as possible for your specific needs, like by creating multiple to-do lists within Tasks and prioritizing your most important to-do items with stars. And then comes the best part: Checking those tasks off once they’re completed. So satisfying!