Ah, finally.
If you use both Gmail and Google Calendar for your e-mail and planning needs, respectively, you can now create calendar events from directly within Gmail messages.
According to Google’s Gmail blog:
Starting today, dates and times within emails are lightly underlined: click them to schedule that conference call or lunch date without ever leaving Gmail.
When you click on one of these underlined dates, you’ll be able to preview your schedule for the day and change the title, date or time of the event. Clicking “Add to Calendar” will do exactly that — add the event to your calendar, and for extra convenience, the calendar event will include a link back to the original email.
Here’s what it looks like in action:
The fact that each calendar event created this way links back to its corresponding e-mail message is icing on the cake — especially if you have a tendency to stare blankly at stuff on your calendar, wondering why you scheduled a particular event, who’s going to be there and what the subject matter is supposed to be. I dunno, maybe I should see a doctor about this.
If you don’t notice this feature in your Gmail yet, don’t worry. Google says, “This new feature is rolling out over the next week to everyone with the English (US) language. We’ll be adding other languages soon, so stay tuned.”