Google continually releases new features in Google Workspace, which is great, but it can be hard to track and understand all the changes. In particular, a lot of changes have happened to Google Tasks lately, including the recent addition of more useful lists for tasks, which I love since I live in ToDoist most days. However, this week, Google really came through for Android users by eliminating the need for the Google Tasks app. Now, you can simply manage tasks from within the Google Calendar app, which is a good attempt at streamlining, so long as you know where to find the feature (and how to use it).
To be clear, you could previously see some tasks in Google Calendar, but they were scattered around and attached to dates—there wasn’t a dedicated view for them. That’s the big change, that you now have a dedicated place to see all your tasks (even ones without a due date), like any other project management system.
Google rolled this out on the web interface this year, and while it lacks the sophistication of other project management tools like Asana and Trello, it’s a move in the right direction. Now, you have the same benefit and functionality on Android mobile. If you're like me, you've probably been cheating the Calendar app for a while by simply entering tasks as calendar events so you have an easier time accessing them. Now you can legitimately create tasks and to-do lists and just assign a date to each.
To access tasks, open up Calendar, go to the tasks icon in the upper right (it looks like a checkmark) and it’ll take you to your upcoming tasks, followed by previously due tasks. You can add new lists (and even subtasks) and assign them to dates, so the relationship with calendar is bidirectional.
I still don’t love the look of the lists—I would far prefer an accordion-based UI to the horizontal scroll that’s currently in use— but I have to assume there will be iterations to make it more competitive with premium project management tools. For now, this is just one less app I need on my phone, although you're welcome to continue using the dedicated Tasks app if you choose, particularly if you like a shortcut or widget on your phone.
If this feature isn't active on your mobile device yet, it will be over the next few weeks as the rollout continues. While I'm not ready to ditch ToDoist or any of my other PM tools, I like where this is going.
