Tip: Use Flags to Mark Tasks when Mobile

June 19, 2015

If you are like me you read a lot of your e-mail on your smartphone. But what if you want to convert an e-mail you read into a task? Most smartphone mail apps cannot do that (there are exceptions and I’ll list them below).

What I do is mark them with a flag, and then when back at my desktop or laptop, convert them to a task there (and remove the flag, and file the e-mail).

Now, I normally only recommend using flags for deferred replies. So I wish there were another way to mark these. But most smartphones have no other way. It’s not so bad though; I find when I look at them later it only takes a second for me to recall why I flagged the item. It works. If you use Gmail, then use the star in the same way.

If this doesn’t work for you for some reason, another method is to forward the email to yourself so it pops into your Inbox a second time, but this time put the word TASK in front of the subject line. A little drastic, but it works.

Here are some smartphone apps that allow converting e-mails to tasks:

Michael

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5 Responses to Tip: Use Flags to Mark Tasks when Mobile

  1. Mark Golden says:

    This is an elegantly simple solution to a persistent challenge to living the empty Inbox life while processing mail on an iPhone.

    It is entirely counterintuitive: everything Microsoft tells you about flags is it means – high priority/needs your immediate attention. This flips that paradigm on its head. The flag means, even though it is still in my inbox, I can ignore it for now and deal with it when I get back to my desktop.

    So obvious a solution that I never would have thought of it.

  2. Michael,
    Agree that the inability to turn an Email to a Task is a big gap on iphones.
    I agree that using flags is probably the best option here.
    I’m not crazy about the idea of “forwarding” again to yourself with “TASK” in the title, but I can see how this could work.. But maybe if there is a way to create an outlook rule to automatically convert an incoming Email with the word “TASK” into a Task, that would work.. but not sure if Outlook Rules can do that.. if not, maybe at least I can color code it so that when I see it again in my inbox, I know it is something I need to turn into a Task..
    Maybe one day we will get a “real” Outlook Inbox system for iPhone.. huge gap if you ask me..
    Michael E.

  3. Marc Sigrist says:

    Another solution (that I use for myself) is to use an additional folder named “ToTask”. All “taskable” emails read on the smartphone are moved there, and when I’m at my PC, I convert all mails from the “ToTask” folder to actual tasks.

    • Michael Linenberger says:

      Marc, that certainly can be a usable solution too. Along with that, one idea is to *copy* them into that folder, rather than just move them there, that way you don’t lose sight of them (in case you check that folder rarely). Thanks for the tip! Michael

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