Tips & Tricks Tuesday: Working out with Remember The Milk
Tuesday, February 23, 2010 by Emily Boyd
This week's Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner, richard.rumley, shares how he uses Remember The Milk to help organize his workouts:
Inspired by the Travel Checklist that was posted a few months ago, I decided to apply the same ideas to my workout routine.
My problem was that I would go to the gym, and "forget" some of the exercises that I wanted to do.
I made a new list, called "All Exercises". This is my golden list of exercises. In this list, I would put a single task for each exercise. Each task will include the following:
- I usually get the exercises from a web page, so I also include the URL with the task, so I can refer back to it if I need to.
- In the "Notes" column, I include the text of how to do each exercise.
- I add a tag for the equipment needed, i.e. mat, bosu ball, medicine ball.
- I put the equipment needed on the task name, so that I can sort it on my Blackberry alphabetically. That way, all of the "mat" work can be done at the same time, before moving onto another piece of equipment, like the "bosu ball."
Posted in: Tips & Tricks
Tips & Tricks Tuesday: Saving time with simple Smart Lists
Tuesday, February 16, 2010 by Emily Boyd
Feel like you're spending more time organizing your tasks than actually doing them? This simple time-saving tip from dwbrown77 takes advantage of Smart Lists to help sort your tasks with minimal effort:
Many GTD solutions force you to spend more time categorizing etc then I feel is worth it (in many cases). So I have a simple system:
I set up saved searches for my most frequent categories: Calls, visits, buy, email etc.
When I input I always make sure that the appropriate word is incorporated in the phrase.
For example "Call Bob Tomorrow".
I know that I can go to the saved search "Calls" and will find "Call Bob". Simple? Yes. Time saving? Yes!
Thanks for sharing this tip, dwbrown77! You're our Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner this week.
Do you have a suggestion for our weekly Tips & Tricks post? Got an interesting set-up or idea? Head over to the Tips & Tricks forum, add a new topic, and let us know how you use Remember The Milk. Each week we'll give away a 1 year Pro account to the user whose idea inspires the Tips & Tricks Tuesday blog post for that week.
Posted in: Tips & Tricks
Tips & Tricks Tuesday: Remember The Milk – A lifesaver for a college student
Tuesday, February 9, 2010 by Emily Boyd
This week's helpful tips come from mooryan's experiences using Remember The Milk as a college student:
I've used many different task management methods and systems, but RTM is here to stay. I love how I can really manage my whole life (work, school, personal, family, church, etc.) All within the same app and don't feel like any tasks really bump into each other unnecessarily.
My tips are how to effectively use RTM as a college student. Some of these tips I have found useful from time to time, others I live by. Hopefully some will be useful to any out there striving to further their education:
- Once I get my hands on a class syllabus, I immediately go to the class outline where all of the assignment deadlines are and input them into RTM. This way, even though I may not know what the 'media law paper' due in 6 weeks, is even concerning, I'll know its been captured and know I don't have to worry about forgeting the assignments and can effectively plan out my nights and weeks.
- Tagging each assignment with the class name can quickly give you an overlook of what is coming up in that particular class and what the rest of that class's workload will entail. Most times I am only concerned about what is due the next day or that week, but many times you want to see the most effective way to plan out GTD'ing for a particular class. That is where tagging helps immensely.
- Tagging all school related assignments in my gmail firefox extension as 2nd priority (work tasks as first priority) can quickly give me a visual as to what needs to be done for school in blue, what needs to be done for work in red.
- Notes help immensely if the assignment involves greater detail that wha you want to have as the name of the task. You can also keep notes for an assignment as you think about them (i.e. ideas for a media law paper) well before it is due.
- Finally, if I want to capture a 'non syllabus' assignment real quick. I can whip out my iPhone and get it captured and tagged without having to pull out my laptop. Simple and inconspicuous. The iPhone is also great for pulling out to task manage while walking on campus between classes.
Nothing real earth-shattering here, but just a couple quick tips I've found helpful to keep on top of managing college. I hope you find something that works for you and that you each can share something for us all to try. Thanks!
Thanks for sharing these tips, mooryan! You're our Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner this week. :)
Do you have a suggestion for our weekly Tips & Tricks post? Got an interesting set-up or idea? Head over to the Tips & Tricks forum, add a new topic, and let us know how you use Remember The Milk. Each week we'll give away a 1 year Pro account to the user whose idea inspires the Tips & Tricks Tuesday blog post for that week.
Posted in: Tips & Tricks
Join the team: Community Manager (Japanese language)
Friday, February 5, 2010 by Omar Kilani
Despite our best efforts, we just haven't been able to get Bob fluent in Japanese (who would have thought that teaching a foreign language to a stuffed monkey would be so difficult?!).
While that's bad news for Bob, it might be good news for you! We now have a part-time position available for a Community Manager (Japanese language) on the Remember The Milk team.
Do you love communicating online and practically live on Twitter? Are you passionate about helping other users get the most out of Remember The Milk? Oh, and do you speak Japanese too?
If this sounds like you, and you'd like to join us in our quest to make the world more organized and productive, head on over to the jobs page and get in touch!
Posted in: Behind the Scenes
Remember The Milk Mobile Survey 2010: Help Bob Decide!
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 by Emily Boyd
We've put Bob T. Monkey in charge of mobile development for 2010 (we figured he deserved the responsibility). Bob's pumped up and looking forward to bringing you more mobile goodness this year.
The problem is, with so many different mobile devices clamouring for some Remember The Milk love, Bob can't decide what to work on next! Should he focus his energy on improvements to one of our existing mobile apps? Create an app for an entirely new device? Develop a native app for a device that we currently only sync with? Enhance our mobile version? The possibilities are endless! (Well, pretty close to it.)
These are important questions because, no matter how many bananas we feed him, Bob can't do everything. :( So, Bob needs your input to help him prioritize development: take the mobile survey and tell Bob what you'd like to see!
Update: The survey has now closed; Bob thanks everyone who responded!
Posted in: New Features & Updates
Tips & Tricks Tuesday: A better "Upcoming" list
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 by Emily Boyd
This week's Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner, RTM user davidscottweaver, explains how he came up with an incredibly useful "Upcoming" Smart List using the advanced search options:
Since I only like to see tasks in my main lists (@Home, @Work, and @Car) that are due, overdue, or have no due date, I created a Smart List set aside just for upcoming tasks. The list only includes specific tasks I believe are worthy of a lead time, and provides a "gentle reminder" of something, well, upcoming. That way the list is always relevant and stays uncluttered. The lead time tags I use are: 3d, 1w, 2w, 3w, 1m. The code behind the Upcoming list looks like this:
(tag:3d AND dueWithin:"4 days of tomorrow" NOT dueBefore:tomorrow) OR (tag:1w AND dueBefore:"1 week of tomorrow" NOT dueBefore:tomorrow) OR (tag:2w AND dueWithin:"2 weeks of tomorrow" NOT dueBefore:tomorrow) OR (tag:3w AND dueWithin:"3 weeks of tomorrow" NOT dueBefore:tomorrow) OR (tag:1m AND dueWithin:"1 month of tomorrow" NOT dueBefore:tomorrow) OR (tag:2m AND dueWithin:"2 months of tomorrow" NOT dueBefore:tomorrow)
By putting "NOT dueBefore:tomorrow" in the code, a task drops off this "Upcoming" list when it's actually due and ends up on my other "main" lists. The lead tags can be changed to suit your needs, but I find those times sufficient. For example, if I need to buy a gift for someone who is hard to shop for, I normally put a 1m tag on it. Where if it's someone who's easy to shop for, a 2w tag is sufficient lead. The 3d tag isn't used too often, but nice if I'd like a gentle reminder for tasks repeating every couple weeks or so. For paying bills, I usually have the due date set to the actual due date of the bill, but the lead tag set to correspond to the date the bill is "available for payment" (usually 3 weeks prior, but not always) so I could pay it early if I want to. The list should be sorted by date.
Lastly, I have a repeating task to check my Upcoming list (repeats after 1 week). I usually check the list anyway whenever I'm on the site, but if I have a task there, I won't go more than a week in case I forget. Hopefully you find this system helpful to you as well.
Thanks for sharing this tip, davidscottweaver!
Do you have a suggestion for our weekly Tips & Tricks post? Got an interesting set-up or idea? Head over to the Tips & Tricks forum, add a new topic, and let us know how you use Remember The Milk. Each week we'll give away a 1 year Pro account to the user whose idea inspires the Tips & Tricks Tuesday blog post for that week.
Posted in: Tips & Tricks
