Add an e-mail to the OS X Reminders app for easy follow-up

Add an e-mail to your Reminders list on OS X to ensure that you remember to reply or complete a task. Here's how.

Did you know you can add an e-mail from OS X Mountain Lion's Mail app to the Reminders app with little effort? Instead of launching Reminders and typing in information you feel is important, you can use this quick shortcut to not only create a reminder, but link to the exact message you'll need later.

• To add an e-mail to the Reminders app, you simply drag and drop it either directly into a Reminders list, or to the Reminders app icon in your Mac's dock. You'll need to click and drag from the header section of the e-mail (where the To/From and subject information is displayed). You'll know you can drag it when the mouse pointer turns into a hand.
  If you have your e-mails grouped by conversations in Mail, you'll need to make sure you're not trying to add the entire conversation to Reminders, but instead are dragging just one of the e-mails to Reminders.

• Once you're hovering over a Reminders list (or the app icon in the dock) with the e-mail, just let go. The e-mail will then be added to your default list if you used the icon method, or the specific list you had pulled up.

• The reminder is then automatically created. It even includes a link to the e-mail you used to create it. You can then add alerts based on day and location or set a priority as you would any other reminder.

Using iCloud, your Reminders will sync between your iOS and OS X devices. But you'll be disappointed when you attempt to view the linked e-mail on iOS. The link will appear in the notes section of the reminder, and will look like a random string of characters, unrecognized by iOS. We hope the capability to add an e-mail to the Reminders app, complete with e-mail links, is something Apple brings to iOS.

By adding an e-mail to your Reminders, you're able to ensure you follow up with a reply or complete a task specified in the e-mail. I use this method on a daily basis to stay on track and keep important tasks from slipping into the e-mail black hole.