Sendtask Earns 2 Awards From FinancesOnline Review Platform

Sendtask Finances Online

Sendtask was recently reviewed by Finances Online – a leading software review platform that lists and compares B2B software solutions to help decision makers find the best tools for their organizations.

The review includes a deep analysis about our software, including:

  • Sendtask features and benefits
  • Problems Sendtask can solve
  • Technical details
  • Comparison vs other task management software platforms

According to Finances Online, “The best part of Sendtask is that users can collaborate with everyone even if they don’t have a Sendtask account, thus effectively eliminating the barriers that impede smooth and productive collaboration and communication.”

Sendtask placed a spot in FinancesOnline’s top 5 task management software alternatives. This recognition shows that Sendtask continues to be a gold standard in the top task management software solutions due to our application’s well-designed functionalities that help various organizations and businesses easily manage their activities.

Finances Online rated our software with a score of 8.0 and we’re proud to have received two awards:

Rising Star Award: given to new SaaS products that are viewed as a service that’s really efficient despite its young age.
Great User Experience Award: granted to products that offer especially good user experience.

We are delighted and grateful for our review, awards and recognition!

You can read the full Sendtask review at the FinancesOnline’s website.

Siftery Interviews Sendtask Founder Cédric Waldburger

sendtask siftery interview

 

This interview was first published on Siftery. You can see the original here.

Sendtask is the easiest way to manage projects directly from your email. It improves how you collaborate online without having to move the whole team to new and complex software packages.

Sendtask lets you assign tasks to anyone using email — then automatically builds a shared workspace with all the tools you need for an efficient workflow. The Sendtask workspace lets you discuss the task, change due dates, attach files and much more — all without even setting up an account!

Kevin William David interviewed Cédric Waldburger, Founder of Sendtask to know more.

Hi Cédric, tell us about what you are working on?

We’re building the world’s most open collaborative task manager. We believe that sharing tasks to collaborate is much more efficient than sending email. Emails can get lost, they don’t have a due date, they can’t be re-assigned. The problem with existing collaborative task managers is that it is a hassle to onboard someone — and that’s why most people use it only in their team. Sendtask makes it easy to share tasks with anyone — even if they don’t have an account. Sendtask also integrates with email and Slack so you can get things done wherever you feel most productive.

Tell me more about the problem you are trying to solve?

While we love Asana, Trello and similar tools and used them in our team since forever, we noticed one thing: Whenever we worked with freelancers, service providers or other third parties, instead of sending them a task, we fell back into our old habits and sent them an email!

Why? Because no one wants to go through the trouble of creating accounts and onboarding when you only work together for a few weeks or months.

That’s why we decided to build Sendtask — it combines the power of collaborative task management with the ease of Email. Sendtask allows you to send tasks to anyone — as long as all you need to know is their email address. The recipient doesn’t need to create an account but can still do everything that he should be able to do with a task — discuss, add attachments, change the assignee and the due date, and of course — complete the task. Gone are the days where you need to onboard someone before you can start working efficiently with them!

How is Sendtask different from what already exists in the market?

There are several main ways we differentiate from competitors like Trello, Asana, Teamwork, Podio and the likes.

First of all, Sendtask lets you collaborate with anyone — even if they don’t have an account. This makes it super easy for users to onboard people.

Second, because Sendtask works using email, we’re able to build some cool integrations efficiently. Currently, our Slack and email integrations are live and ready to use. How often does it happen to you that someone asks you to do something on Slack? In the past, you had to manually go to your task manager, take a note and then go back to slack. With Sendtask’s Slack integration you can send and create tasks with a super simple syntax directly from Slack.

Also, you’ll find that Sendtask can recognize natural language so you can set due dates using words like “Tomorrow at 5pm” or “Friday at noon”.

Essentially, we’ve optimized Sendtask for people who work on multiple tasks and projects with different teams. None of our competitors allow you to get a good 360 degree view on all your tasks.

Interesting, tell us a bit about the different customer segments using Sendtask?

We serve makers — the people who are curious and create new things. At the moment, Sendtask is being used by people who manage multiple projects and have task-intensive workdays. We have active users on all continents — from architects in Switzerland to social entrepreneurship projects in Latin America and even a company that builds public toilets in Thailand. Entrepreneurs and their teams, project managers, freelancers and teachers all embrace Sendtask.

How are your customers using Sendtask? Could you share a few different use cases?

Sendtask is a fairly intuitive product so most people use it the way we expect them to. Typically, a new project will be created and then populated with tasks. Then, the tasks are assigned to their task owners, with due dates and priority set at this point. Usually, there will be communication between the assignee and the person who assigned the task when work commences. People start adding comments and attachments as they complete their tasks. Normally, the assignee would reassign the task back to the original person who created the task for review and, ultimately, marking the task as complete.

Have there been unique use cases for Sendtask that you hadn’t thought of or expected?

We originally thought Sendtask will be used by strictly digital businesses who work primarily online. However, at the moment one of our most active business users is a toilet manufacturer based in Thailand! We also have wedding organizers and other businesses with physical locations who find it useful to organize their projects using Sendtask.

Were there any early ‘growth hacks’ or tactics that have contributed to your current success?

To date, our biggest sources of traffic and new users were launches on sites like Product Hunt and BetaList. We also got surprise coverage from a Polish blog which converted extremely well.

What were some of the biggest challenges while building the product early on and how did you solve them?

We started off with an idea to combine task management, scheduling and note-taking in one place. We built an MVP and quickly found out the market needs an open solution that lets them share tasks with anyone, not just their immediate team. This MVP evolved into Sendtask. This was not so much a challenge as it was a learning process, but I feel it was something we had to overcome in order to get to where we are at the moment.

What have been some of the most interesting integrations you’ve added? Are there any that have been particularly impactful for you?

Right now, our Slack and email integrations are live and running. They let you manage your tasks without leaving your email or Slack sessions. Also, an interesting thing is the ability to use Sendtask with Evernote. We had intended to have an Evernote integration at this early stage but Evernote’s email feature lets you send notes to your Sendtask account and they will appear as tasks to complete. Because we’ve built such an open system that connects to email, we’re often able to get integrations live in a quick and simple fashion.

Finally, before we finish, what are the top products that you depend on to run the company & how do you use them?

Of course, we use Sendtask to manage all action-related information (projects and tasks). We use Slack for general communication in our team. We have our weekly call on appear.in. We schedule using Google Calendar. We store files and documents in Google Drive. We use Intercom for engaging and communicating with users. For analytics, we rely mainly on Google’s Universal Analytics.

What You Should Do With A Task You Didn’t Get Done On Time

task

Articulate

Planning is an art. And more often than not, we tend to overestimate what we can get done in a day. It might be that some things take a bit longer than planned or that urgent matters come up last minute. But it’s only natural that some tasks will remain undone at the end of a work day.

What’s the right thing to do with these tasks?

#1: Update the due date

Every task on Sendtask comes with a due date field. The due date is crucial for multiple reasons:

Most of our users sort their ‘Tasks assigned to me’ view by due date. Meaning that a task that is due today shows up above one that is due in a few days. And thus those that are due sooner get more attention. A task without a due date may end up so far down the list that it is never seen.

If it’s a shared task, the due date communicates when you think you’ll get something done. If someone sends you a task, they might come back to it to check if you have already had time to get it done. An accurate due date helps them get that information at a glance – all without having to bother you to ask.

#2: Leave a comment

If you’re collaborating on this task with someone, leave a quick comment with a status update if you think that’s helpful for the others. You won’t disrupt their workflow with this – they get a summary email twice a day that covers all relevant comments. That’s a super convenient way to get them updated without interrupting their flow.

#3: Delegate

Some tasks stay on our list for way too long. Often it is because we need to ask someone for help or wait for someone to make the next step. In this case – just assign the task to them and ask them to re-assign it to you once they’ve done their part.

Bonus: Is the task really needed?

Sometimes it also helps to ask yourself if this task is really important. If not, go ahead and delete it.

How To Use Sendtask To Keep A List Of Writing Ideas

writing

About 30 days ago, I challenged myself to write every single day. Writing is
something I have always struggled with and I needed to find a way to make
writing easier for myself. I have since written an article, an interview or
other long form text every day.

Often, it is easy to come up with ideas but sometimes I don’t
know what I’ll write about immediately. For those moments, I keep a list of things I
want to write about on Sendtask. Sometimes, it’s a question that someone
has asked me. Other times, it’s an experience that I want to write about later.

In order to not forget about these, I’ve created a project named “#write”
on Sendtask. Because of our email integration, it’s really easy to add items
to the list while I’m on the go. All I have to do is send an email to ‘
task@sendtask.io’ and put my thoughts into the subject line, followed by
‘#write’. For example, for this article, I sent ‘How to use
sendtask to collect writing ideas #write’.

Similarly, I can add writing ideas to the list from Slack. Our team spends a lot of time in Slack. Being a distributed team, Slack is our equivalent of walking over to another desk and mentioning something. Naturally, a lot of my inspiration for writing comes up while I’m in Slack. We believe that one should be able to create tasks immediately from wherever one does a lot of their work. Thus we created our Slack integration. With a syntax that’s even simpler than the email syntax, one can create tasks right away via the /sendtask slash command. The above example would be: “/sendtask How to use sendtask to collect writing ideas #write’ – this will add the task to the #write project immediately.

Now, every day I don’t know what to write about I just pull up this list and
check what I’ve recently added.

Of course, you can use the same mechanic for another project – your grocery
list, a list of ideas for birthday presents and many more.

What kind of lists do you cultivate and what tool do you use for them?

How To Get Your Team Onto Sendtask

team onto sendtask

Some of our users have asked us for tips on how to onboard the rest of their team. Here’s a best practice guide for how to onboard your team onto Sendtask:

#1. Motivation

Start with why you want your team to use Sendtask and move away from Email (or other non-task means of communication). 

Why will we use Sendtask for tasks instead of email going forward?
Some of the reasons that we frequently hear from our users are:

  • Tasks in emails can easily get lost within a conversation.
  • Tasks in emails aren’t trackable and there’s no way to see which tasks you’ve assigned to someone else.
  • It takes a lot of time and effort to update your collaborators if your schedule changes. You have to manually email them when the due date shifts. In Sendtask, this is taken care of as soon as you update the due date on a task.

Also, keep in mind that your teammates can still use email to create tasks on Sendtask through our email integration.

What are the alternatives to email?
Sendtask definitely isn’t the only alternative. But we think it’s the best mix of functionality, flexibility, and simplicity.

You could do with Post-Its but that becomes messy very fast and doesn’t allow you any kind of overview or automated communication.

You could also use very sophisticated project management tools like JIRA but there’s a very steep learning curve and everyone needs to have an account first.

We believe that Sendtask is the right mix of both worlds. It combines the simplicity of Post-Its with many of the features of more complex collaboration software.

#2. Functionality

Then, it’s best to give your teammates a tour of Sendtask’s features. If you’re ready to convince your team to use Sendtask, you probably know most of these. However, we’ve linked all of them to their page in our tour if you would like some additional reference.

The Layout

-The list view and task detail view
Filters and Sort options

Task Functionality

Sending and receiving tasks

The view for a received task for signed-in users and users without an account

Functionality and fields in the task detail view: Assignee, Due date, Comments, Attachments, Followers

Subtasks

Recurring due dates

Projects

Creating a project

Project Followers

Project Settings

We’ve seen that it is helpful to create a project together with your teammates during this session to give them a very clear idea of how projects work.

Miscellaneous

-Mobile App

Email integration

Slack integration

#3. Rules And Workflow

Now that your team knows why you are going to switch to Sendtask and how Sendtask works, there are two more important questions:

  1. What to use Sendtask for?
  2. How to use Sendtask?

What to use Sendtask for?

A lot of our users replace all email communication that calls for an action with Sendtask. They only allow communication via email that doesn’t expect a feedback. An example of this is “Please note that the elevator is being repainted today”. Everything else that expects an answer (“Can you please send that report?”, “Please let me know the dates you’ll be on holiday”, …) goes into Sendtask.

Our users tell us that it took them between two and three weeks to get everyone to switch to Sendtask but once they got used to it, everyone became more productive.

How to use Sendtask?

Sendtask is a tool and is flexible to adapt to your workflow. This framework is one example of how to use Sendtask. It’s in use successfully by many of our users:

  • Each task needs to have a due date and assignee set. If not, the task might get lost because it will not show up in anyone’s ‘Assigned To Me’ view.
  • At the end of the day, there should be no tasks left with overdue due dates. Everyone must change the due date of incomplete tasks to a realistic due date. This is important to give everyone an accurate idea of when they can expect feedback for their tasks.
  • If a task creator is likely to do something with the results of the task (e.g. they will further process a report they have asked for), then the task should not be completed by the assignee but it should be re-assigned to the task creator.

These three basic rules have helped many of our users to get very good visibility on their team’s progress.

#4. Q&A And Next Steps

We recommend that before you finish the meeting, you get everyone onboarded on Sendtask and exchange some tasks. Ask everyone to copy over their tasks from wherever they tracked them previously – could be from their inbox, a written note or other.

Clarify who the right contact to ask is for questions. Typically, questions about the workflow and how to use Sendtask will be answered by someone in your team. If questions about Sendtask in general arise or something doesn’t work the way it’s expected, use the blue Intercom button on our site or our Help pages to find answers.

We wish you good luck and a very productive meeting with your team! Let us know if you have amendments for this guide!

How To Use Sendtask With The SMART Framework

smart framework

The SMART framework is frequently mentioned in management literature. It’s a goal-setting framework used by organizations and individuals based on Peter Drucker’s concept of management by objectives. Often, the acronym stands for different things depending on the author. For our purposes, it stands for:

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Action-oriented
  • Realistic
  • Time-bound

That’s how you should be able to define your goals and key objectives.

In this post, we’ll look at how you can utilize Sendtask to make the most out of the SMART framework (and vice-versa). If you’ve struggled with getting the right things done on time, this post will help you manage your time and goals better. We’ll look at five steps you can take today in order to reach your biggest objectives. Let’s dive in.

#1. Establish a specific goal or outcome

The first step you need to take when defining your goals or objectives is to determine your end destination. There are many ways to do this but one of the most efficient ones is visualization.

As the name suggests, visualization requires you to imagine where you or your organization stand some time in the future. A good way to make visualization easier is to write down the current state of affairs for a single or a number of different areas – either in your life or your business. This could be things like your Health or Profitability. Once you write down the current status for each area, ask yourself how you’d like this area to improve after a given amount of time. This could be a week, a month, a year or more, depending on the goal you’re after.

Once you have a clear vision of the outcome, make sure it’s something specific. For example, “Improve profitability” is a vague description of a goal. “Improve men’s bicycle margin by 10% before year-end” is a better example of a specific objective. It identifies a single area to focus on, provides a deadline and identifies a metric to keep an eye on.

Sendtask tip: Sections and Projects are a great way to set long-term goals for yourself or your organization. Short-term goals can normally be set using tasks. Learn more.

#2. Choose the one metric that matters

The one metric that matters (OMTM) is the “guiding star” of your objective. It’s a (usually) numeric expression of your concrete vision. From the example above, men’s bicycle margin is our OMTM.

Among other things, the OMTM helps you stay on focus and never lose sight of your goal. It also lets you track your progress against a benchmark which provides greater motivation. Having a series of little wins along the way to a bigger goal can be the difference between success and failure. The momentum gives you a great boost and makes hard times easier to handle.

So, how do you choose the OMTM? First, you need to take into account the context you operate in. This could be your industry if you run a business or it could be your life-stage if you want to change something personal. The OMTM can influence your end goal because you may find you were going after the wrong thing initially. This is why it’s important to remain flexible when setting goals and objectives. Think deeply about the OMTM before jumping into action as it may just save you a ton of time and resources.

Sendtask tip: When setting up high-level projects and sections, it’s a good idea to include the one metric that matters in the title. This way you will always have it in sight and stay on focus when creating tasks and subtasks. Learn more.

10% extra margin

#3. Make sure action steps are within your control

Even if you choose a specific and measurable goal, it’s easy to focus on an extrinsic goal. When you choose an extrinsic objective, often you don’t have enough control over the outcome. Going back to our bicycle example, if you’re the receptionist you will have little to no influence over sales margins.

Instead, you should only focus on goals you have control over. You need to be able to perform or control the action steps directly, without depending too much on external factors. For example, if your aim is to become a better programmer, an action oriented goal would be to spend 1 extra hours per day coding. That’s within your control and impacts your outcome directly.

Sendtask tip: If an end goal is dependent on many people, not just yourself, tasks and subtasks are a great way to delegate work. Even if the bigger objective is extrinsic, individual tasks or subtasks should be action-oriented. Learn more.

Subtasks-distributors

#4. Make sure the goal or outcome is realistic

Another mistake people often make is setting unrealistic goals. Sometimes, the timeframe is unattainable while other times the goal is beyond our current abilities. It’s important to make an objective evaluation of where you stand right now and where you want to go.

#5. Set a concrete deadline

Finally, if you want to get something done, make sure it’s on the calendar. A goal without a deadline is just a dream. A concrete date can push you so you don’t waste time and take consistent action.

When setting a goal deadline, allow yourself more time than you expect the goal to take. We tend to underestimate how much time or money projects will take so it’s always good to have a buffer. This will help prevent demoralization and it will give you something to look forward to.

Sendtask tip: It’s easy to set a due date in Sendtask. Some careful evaluation and a few clicks will let you make substantial progress with your goals. Learn more.

set deadline

Conclusion

It doesn’t matter if you’re a seasoned manager or someone who’s just getting into the productivity space – the SMART framework is always a good way to ensure you’re on track and achieving the right goals.

So the next time you step back to establish your new goals, spend that extra time and make your goal Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented, Realistic, and Time-bound. The bigger the goal, the bigger your return on your time invested will be.

How To Use The Magic Bar – A Brief Guide

Magic-bar-screenshot

The Magic bar lets you search for, create and assign tasks. The cool part is it can recognize dates using natural language, project names, and email contacts. It also triggers when you type anywhere on the screen. This means you can create, search and assign tasks with due dates in seconds, without even touching the mouse. In this brief guide, you’ll find tips for using the Magic bar.

How to trigger the Magic bar

Animated GIF  - Find & Share on GIPHY

Click on the Magic bar or start typing anywhere on the screen (unless it’s another input field). This will trigger the Magic bar view which shows you task search results and lets you create new tasks.

How to search for a task

magic-bar-search

If you want to search for a task, start typing its title or any part of it and it will appear in the search results. Note that you must have access to the task either as a follower, assignee or through a project you’re part of.

How to create a task

magic-bar-create-task

If you want to create a task, simply type its title and press “Enter”. You will be the default assignee unless you delete your name from the beginning of the task.

How to add a due date to a task

add-due-date-magic-bar

You can set a due date by entering words like “tomorrow” or “next week”. Of course, you can still use normal dates if you prefer such as 14/05/2017 or May 14. See a list of available commands here.

How to add a task to a project

add-task-to-project-magic-bar

If you want to add a project to a task, use a hashtag (#) in front of the project name. If the project does not exist, you will see an option to create it.

How to add an assignee or follower to a task

Animated GIF  - Find & Share on GIPHY

Adding assignees or followers is easy. Simply type “@” before the person’s name (if they’re on your contact list) or email address. You will also be able to choose from your list of existing contacts. Note that the first person you mention will be the assignee and everyone after will be a follower.

These are the basics of getting started with the Magic bar. We hope you’ll find your own way of using it and save more time in your day. 

Getting Started With Sendtask

List-view

This guide will provide you with a description of how Sendtask works. By the time you finish reading, you will know how to use all the basic features from creating a task to assigning it to a team member or anyone else.

How do you create tasks

There are four different ways to create a task:
1) Click the “+” signs at the beginning of each section
2) Type in the empty fields at the end of each section
3) Press “Enter” when you’ve selected a task
4) Use the Magic bar

See below for more details on how to do this.

1) Click the “+” signs at the beginning of each section

Create a task with +

You can create a new task by clicking on the “+” buttons in the upper left corners of your due date sections. You will see these buttons in other sorting views as well, such as project view and assignee view.

Note: The “+” buttons are not available when sorting your tasks manually.

2) Type in the empty fields at the end of each section

3 - Create a task with Add a task

3) Press “Enter” when you’ve selected a task

4- Create a task by pressing Enter

4) Use the Magic bar

5 - Create or search for a task with the Magic bar

The Magic bar is used to search for and create tasks. It can recognize dates, projects, and email contacts. You can type anywhere on the screen (other than the designated fields for writing) and the Magic bar will populate.

How do you search for tasks

6 - Magic bar in action

You can use the Magic bar to search for tasks. Again, the Magic bar will recognize various properties such as dates, projects, and even your email contacts. You can type anywhere on the screen (other than the designated fields for writing) and the Magic bar will populate.

How do you set a task due date

7 - Set a due date 1

Set a due date for your task by clicking on the “Calendar” icon in the top right of the task description box. Choose a date and the assignee (this could be you or someone else) will be automatically reminded on the morning when the task’s due.

8 - Set a due date 2

If you want to specify a particular time for your deadline, simply type it in after the date you choose. For example, add “2 pm” after the deadline in the Due Date field.

How do you add a comment

9 - Add a comment

You can add a comment to describe your task in more detail or communicate with your followers. Simply click the chat box, add your comment, and press the “Add Comment” button.

Note: Followers are collaborators who participate or need to know about the task, but they are not the direct assignee. All followers will be automatically notified when there’s a new comment.

How do you attach a file

10 - Attach a file

You can attach a file by clicking on the paperclip icon below at the beginning of the chat box. Your file will be uploaded and all task followers will be notified by email.

How do you create projects

11 - Add a project 1

Project names help you organize tasks and work as labels for filtering. You can add a project name by clicking on the “+” button and typing in its name or choosing an existing project.

12 - Add a project 2

Pro Tip: Click on the project name to view all tasks in that project and assign different colors for a quick overview.

How do you add/ remove a task follower

13 - Add a follower 1

If you want to share a task with team members or anyone else, you need to add a task follower. You can do this by clicking the “Add Follower” button and typing in their name or email address. You can remove followers from the same field.

14 - Add a follower 2

How do you assign a task to someone

15 - Assign a task 1

You can assign the task by clicking the profile icon in the top of the task description box. If you’re logged in with your Google account, you will see your contacts. Otherwise, type in the email address of the assignee. Then simply choose the assignee and the task will automatically disappear from your list and go to theirs.

16 - Assign a task 2

How do you add a task section

17 - Add a section

Sections help you organize your tasks and projects. To create a section, just add a colon (:) at the end of a task title. Sections are especially helpful when you sort a project by manual order (choose “Sort By> Manual”) and then drag tasks into the right sections.

Pro tip: You can also add #, ## or ### at the beginning of a section to create further structure.

How do you delete a task

18 - Delete task

You can delete a task by clicking the “More options” button in the top right of the task description box and selecting “Delete”. You will then get an option to Undo deleting a task in case you did it by mistake.

Getting Started With Sendtask For Slack

sendtask-for-slack

This article will guide you through the most important features of the Sendtask integration for Slack. You will find out how to bring powerful task management features to your Slack team and control everything in one place.

Install the Sendtask integration for Slack

How to see your to-do list

You can see your list of tasks that are due today, tomorrow or are overdue by typing in “/sendtasks” in any Slack channel in your team.
how-to-see-to-do-list-two

Note: There is a limit of 100 tasks to be shown in Slack, ordered by due date.

How to see all your incomplete tasks

incomplete-tasks

If you want to see all of your incomplete tasks (not just due today, tomorrow or overdue), you must type in “/sendtasks incomplete”. The tasks will be arranged by due date.

Note: There is a limit of 100 tasks to be shown in Slack, ordered by due date.

How to see tasks that you’ve completed

complete-tasks

You can see all the tasks you’ve completed by typing in “/sendtasks complete”. You will get a list of all tasks you’ve completed arranged by due date.

Note: There is a limit of 100 tasks to be shown in Slack, ordered by due date.

How to see all your tasks – both complete and incomplete

all-tasks
You can see all your tasks – both complete and incomplete – when you type in “/sendtasks all”. This will bring a list of every task that was assigned to you in Sendtask, even if it was completed. The list will be arranged by due date.

Note: There is a limit of 100 tasks to be shown in Slack, ordered by due date.

How to create tasks for yourself

create-task

You can create a task for yourself by typing in “/sendtask” followed by the task name.

For Example:
/sendtask Buy milk on the way home

This will create a task titled “Buy milk on the way home” which will appear in your to-do list when you view it in the Sendtask app or in Slack. The task will automatically be assigned to you.

How to set a task due date

set-a-due-date

You can set a task due date by adding the due date anywhere after the “/sendtask” command.

For example:
/sendtask Buy milk on the way home tomorrow
OR
/sendtask Tomorrow buy milk on the way home
OR
/sendtask Buy milk tomorrow on the way home

All of these examples will create a task titled “Buy milk on the way home tomorrow” (or one of the other two variations) with the due date set to the next day.

How to assign a task to someone else

assign-a-task

You can assign a task to someone else by adding their @name (if they’re on your Slack team) or email address anywhere after the “/sendtask” command.

For example:
/sendtask Buy milk on the way home tomorrow @jason
OR
/sendtask @jason buy milk on the way home tomorrow
OR
/sendtask Buy milk on the way home jason@emailprovider.com

All of these examples will create a task titled “Buy milk on the way home tomorrow” that is assigned to Jason and has a due date set to the next day.

How to add followers to a task

add-follower

You can add a task follower by including their @name (if they’re on your Slack team) or email address anywhere after the assignee’s name.

For example:
/sendtask @jason Buy milk on the way home tomorrow bart.simpson@springfield.com
OR
/sendtask Buy milk on the way home tomorrow @jason bart.simpson@springfield.com

Both of these examples will create a task titled “Buy milk on the way home tomorrow” that is assigned to Jason and has a due date set to the next day. However, it will also include the task creator and Bart Simpson as followers in the task.

Note: If you want to assign the task to yourself and add collaborators, you have to include your @name or email address before you include any followers.

How to mark a task as complete

mark-complete

Whenever you view any task in Slack, you will see a “Complete Task” button. If you want to mark a task as done, simply click the button.

How to see more details about a task

show-deitals

Whenever you view any task in Slack, you will see a “Show Task Details” button. If you want to see more details about the task such as followers, due date, comments, and assignee, simply click the button.

How to undo completing a task

undo

Whenever you mark a task as complete, the button will change from “Complete Task” to “Undo”. Simply press “Undo” to bring the task back to your list.

Install the Sendtask integration for Slack

How To Take Control Of Tasks In Your Inbox

inbox-task-management

Lifehacker

Ever sent yourself a reminder email? You don’t have to.

Email is meant to help you communicate. Therefore, using it as a task management and notification tool comes with a set of limitations.

Why you should never send yourself another reminder email

Simply put, using email for task management is like washing your car with just water and old newspapers – it does a sloppy job.

Why do I feel so strongly about this? I’ve managed tasks with email for years and experienced first hand all the issues this brings such as:

  • Cluttering your inbox
  • Making you waste time searching for tasks because not all of them are in emails
  • It doesn’t allow you to track progress, making it difficult to see the big picture
  • It’s very limited in terms of categorization
  • It’s plain old inefficient

It didn’t take long before I started thinking about using something else. I’ve tried and tested dozens of software solutions, only to come back to email again for one reason – I just HAVE to use it because of other people.

 

Using email for task management is like washing your car with water and old newspapers Click To Tweet.

 

How to turn your inbox into a powerful task management hub

So now you’re facing a different problem – you have to use email but it’s just not good enough for task management.

To solve this issue, I started using Sendtask to manage all the actionable items that somehow ended up in my inbox or anywhere else. Sendtask gives you all the task management features you need for efficient work and collaboration directly in your inbox.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on you can use it to take control of tasks in your inbox immediately:

Step 1) Add [due_date]@sendtask.io as the email recipient

To send any actionable information to your Sendtask account, forward or start writing a normal email, only this time enter [due_date]@sendtask.io as the recipient.

For example, enter tomorrow9am@sendtask.io if you need to do something the next day at nine in the morning. You can see a full list of email deadline formats here.

Step 2) Add the task title in the subject line

The subject line becomes the task title in Sendtask so you should make it something actionable.

Step 3) Enter any comments in the email field (optional)

 

If the task has extra information attached to it, simply type it in as a comment in the email field. This will come up in the details box on Sendtask. Then simply send your email and the task will appear in your dashboard.

You can also forward actionable info to someone else – even if they’re not on Sendtask.

You can manage your own tasks and also assign tasks to anyone else as long as you have their email address. Simply add their email address in the recipient field along with [due_date]@sendtask.io. This will create a virtual workspace for you and the assignee even if they don’t have an account. You will be able to track the tasks you’ve assigned to yourself and others in the same dashboard.

In short, Sendtask gives you the opportunity to capture all actionable info and track progress in one place. You can use email, mobile, and the web app to create and manage tasks, with a Slack integration also coming soon.

Ready to try it out? Jump back into Sendtask.