On my never-ending quest to find the perfect task management tool, I’ve sampled quite a few tools at my disposal.

For a long time, TeuxDeux has suited me well. Designed by Swiss Miss and developed by Fictive Kin, it’s über-minimal design and workflow was a joy to use, both on the desktop site and accompanying iPhone app. Allocating tasks to specific days in the current week was ideal for keeping short-term plans organised and, if necessary, you could push long-term tasks into the Someday tray.

However, I found myself missing tasks that were due at a specific time of the day and this is when I started to look at other options, particularly with alerts. This is when I stumbled upon Google Tasks.

I was aware that Google created a very simple task management tool into the Gmail and Google Calendar interface but not really done much with it. Only on further investigation, I realised you could set due dates and times on tasks, even organise into lists for different types of tasks. This was great but there was no way of getting alerts for tasks with set times using the Web-based solution.

It was only after a (typical) call for help when Joseph Russell pointed me towards GoTasks – a free iOS app built specifically around Google Tasks for iPhone and iPad. With a native app for the iPhone, I could then configure push notifications for tasks due at a specific time.Equally, I could manage tasks online and offline into different lists (for me, “Clients”, “Projects” and “General”).

I’ve been using this new setup for the last week and found it suits my habits much better, especially with remembering time-based tasks. I like that I can have a brainwave while out and about, quickly add it to GoTasks and pick it up when I get back to my desktop while checking emails or Google Calendars.

It might not suit everyone but there’s no harm in trying, especially if you already use Gmail.