Tips & Tricks Tuesday: Zen priorities
Tuesday, April 26, 2011 by Emily Boyd
Spending a little too much time prioritizing, and not enough doing? This week's tip, shared by kkingman, shows a different way to use priorities to highlight just the tasks you need to focus on each day:
Adding a priority when I added a task always seemed so arbitrary. All tasks are P1 at some point, right?
After a period of constantly changing priorities on tasks as they came due, I finally just set all tasks to "No Priority" and then each morning, or the night before, when I review my tasks for the day, I pick only 3 absolutely must-do tasks for Priority 1, the 3 second most important for Priority 2 and so on.
This gives me a clear picture of what must be done first and to completion each day.
Thanks for sharing this tip, kkingman! 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: Winning contests
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 by Andrew Conkling
Many people use Remember The Milk to keep track of all sorts of tasks—work, home; urgent, important; etc. This week's tip, shared by radmoose, describes a way to keep track of contests you'd like to enter.
While I live an active life with a constantly changing list, I do find pleasure in entering contests and of course, winning things. Some of my friends are surprised at how often I do win things. Until now, I haven't exposed my "secret" tool to do so. Yup RTM.
Most contests have a timeframe in which you can enter, such as once per day or per week. When I get a new contest I add it to RTM include the time frame in the recurring section as well as the URL then tag it with "contest." Adding the URL for the contest entry is a timesaver as I don't have to deal with bookmarks or hunting down an email with the information.
I then setup a Smart List for the contest tag. In just a few minutes per day, I go thru my list while I have some downtime throughout the day and enter the contests. I don't have to worry as I can access RTM from just about anywhere and get my entries in easily and quickly. This is a productive way to get those things done that will fit in during those moments while you have a minute or two free. When I hit complete, it automatically is scheduled to remind me the next time I can enter.
I have won food, movie tickets, software, toys, DVDs… lots of things without losing my focus on getting the important things done.
Thanks for sharing this tip, radmoose! 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: Tracking conference deadlines
Tuesday, April 12, 2011 by Andrew Conkling
Many students and professionals attend regular conferences throughout the year. This week's tip, shared by nickelsen, describes one way to keep track of upcoming conferences and their deadlines.
Research assistants and PhD students within the same research area often attend the same scientific conferences. Until now, each researcher managed a personal list of relevant conferences, which is redundant work and with the risk of missing good conferences.
Within our group, we now share information about relevant conferences in one RTM-list between researchers. Tasks are created with conference acronym and page requirements as name and submission date as due date. Additional information, such as link to website, is optional but encouraged. Tasks are set to repeat yearly.
This way we all share the latest information, keep track of upcoming deadlines and all contribute to the list when new information is announced. When the deadline has passed, the task is completed, such that it re-appears next year.
When new colleagues join the group, they get immediate access to relevant conference deadlines, and can, in addition, update the list with their own knowledge of conferences, to everyone’s advantage.
Thanks for sharing this tip, nickelsen! 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
Remember The Milk for Gmail updated with Firefox 4 support
Thursday, April 7, 2011 by Emily Boyd
We've released an update today to the Remember The Milk for Gmail add-on, improving our support for Firefox 4. Before the update, our add-on wasn't playing too nicely with the latest Firefox release, sometimes causing the browser to freeze. :(
If you're using this add-on with Firefox, the browser should automatically update for you; if it hasn't, please manually update the add-on to version 1.0.6.
As usual, you can find the current status of the Remember The Milk for Gmail add-on by visiting the status page; we frequently update the add-on to support each new version of Gmail's code.
Posted in: New Features & Updates
Tips & Tricks Tuesday: Magician's Choice
Tuesday, April 5, 2011 by Andrew Conkling
This week's tip, shared by biokinton, discusses how a magician can use Remember The Milk to manage their tricks. Like many of the tips we share here, it's interesting to think how it could be applied to other things as well.
So, not only is RTM infinitely useful for remembering to pay the rent, pick up the dog from the kennels, put the children to bed and, well, just about anything you can care to set a deadline for, but if you happen to be a magician who has to run out of the room screaming if his audience keeps asking for more tricks once you're done showing them your three favourites then, well, RTM to the rescue!
Some time ago I created a list called Magic and began adding tricks, one per task. To each trick I added two notes, one for the method, where the mechanics of the trick are described along with a reference to the originating magician and the page of his or her book where the trick can be found, and one for the patter, or script (or what you say to the audience to keep attention away from what you're doing with your hands). If it's a new trick that I'm not yet in a position to show anyone it's tagged with learning, and whenever I have time to practice it's a straightforward task to bring up a list of what I'm currently working on.
Once I'm satisfied that a trick is ready for performance it's re-tagged as in.rotation. After I've shown it to, say, ten or more people I generally have a good idea as to whether it's a keeper or not, and the better it's received, the higher a priority it's assigned, so at any time I can see which tricks I know play the strongest (invaluable for the occasions when I have only one chance to make a lasting impression). Tags are also useful when it comes to categorising tricks. If it's all over in under a minute, I tag it with quickie. If it involves cheating at poker, I tag it with gambling.demonstration. If it'll have people petition the relevant authorities to reintroduce burning of witches and wizards at the stake, I tag it sure-fire.
RTM is also a boon when it comes to creating tricks. The majority of magic effects are achieved through the combination of secret moves, or sleights. These sleights are a means to a particular end and I tag them as such. So, for example, if I'm in the process of dreaming up a card routine and think that a false shuffle is needed, I create a Smart List of all tasks in my Magic list with the tag cards.falseshuffle and take a look. A lot of the time I'm surprised at how much I know and have subsequently forgotten, particularly when a lot of the sleights took months if not years to perfect.
Thanks for sharing this tip, biokinton! 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
