Stuff the monkey says

Deciding what to do in a given day can be daunting, but just as important and perhaps easier is deciding what not to do. This week’s tip, shared by jlam, suggests using this as a framework for planning your day.

I’ve often found myself looking at a list of tasks that were due for a previous day and which I didn’t get done. Most of the time it’s because I set unrealistic expectations of what I can accomplish.

Successful people are good at determining what they will *NOT* do today.

A recent trick I found is:

1. Look at a list of tasks that are due today or before, sorted by due date.
   
2. Set all tasks due to today.
   
3. Pick the ones that you absolutely need to do today.
   
4. Set their due date for yesterday. 
   
5. Postpone all the tasks that are due today. The longer the postponement, usually the better.
   

Thanks for sharing this tip, jlam! 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.

Smart Lists can be great to show you just the tasks you want at any given time. dominic.spachmann takes that on the road this week, sharing a Smart List to show a specific set of nearby tasks.

I did not use the “nearby” function very much, since it shows all tasks nearby without a filter on what is relevant now.

With a Smart List “_NEARBY” in my Favourites this changed:

I use location for two purposes:

1. Tasks that are bound to a location and due at a certain point in time.
   
2. My shopping tasks that are bound to a location e.g. the supermarket without a due date to pick up if you are nearby.
   

I now created a Smart List “_NEARBY” and put it in my Favourites:

locatedWithin:500m AND (dueBefore:Now OR startBefore:Now OR due:never)

The tasks in this list are grouped by location.

This list now shows all tasks nearby that are relevant to me: Tasks, that are due and where the location is nearby and all tasks that have to be done nearby, which have no due date.

So I see what really has to be done nearby. I find this very useful.

Thanks for sharing this tip, dominic.spachmann! 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.

Parenting can feel like All The Things all at once, but nothing helps like a good list! theodor.schulte’s tip this week starts with a shared list and runs with it to manage all things baby.

With a newborn child, your life is changing a lot. Nothing is like it is after the birth, and you have a lot of things to take into consideration. But with RTM, all the tasks are in one place and easy to manage (hyperlinks, packing lists, furnishing of the child’s room, questions to the midwife, and so on).

And with just a smile of your child, all the effort is forgotten and you are proud like nobody else.

My wife and I each have an RTM account and so we created a separate list named Leonie (the name of our child) and shared this list with each other.

First of all, we created a task without due date named “Children’s room”. In it, we put all the to-dos for furnishing the room separated in subtasks like painting the room, constructing children’s bed, construction heating lamp, buying trash bin and so on.

After that, we created a task without a due date named “Important Links”. In it, we collect all the important links separated in subtasks without a due date like help against suffocation, perfect room climate, child doctor, child hospitals nearby, formalities, developments of the child and so on. Since then, nothing is forgotten anymore.

We created another task without due date named “Packing list” and put into it all the things as subtasks without due date for the hospital.

After the birth, we created a task without due date for the “Questions to the midwife”. In it, we collected all the questions through subtasks we had. As due date we chose each day the midwife visited us.

A very important task was the “Breastfeeding time” task without a due date. Every breastfeeding time, we added a note with the duration and side of the breast. So we could take control about the behaviour and when it is time for the next breastfeeding.

Last but not least we added a final task without a due date for all the gifts. Every time we got a present, we added a subtask without due date with the donator’s name and kind of present in it, so we could remember. After that, we created thanksgiving cards and could easily send it with the kind of present to all our friends and family. We could complete task by task until all the donators got their cards.

Thanks for sharing this tip, theodor.schulte! 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.

With Microsoft’s recent announcement that they’ll be retiring Wunderlist, we’ve been getting a whole bunch of requests for an option to import tasks from Wunderlist into Remember The Milk.

We’re happy to announce that import is now available! You can import your Wunderlist tasks by going to ‘Account Settings’ then ‘Import’ in our web and desktop apps. See our help page for more details.

We plan to add support for importing from more apps and services in the future, so if you’d like to see support for a specific app or service, please let us know!

Quotations can be a source of wisdom, inspiration, motivation, and so on. Making them readily accessible makes them easier to enjoy. This week’s tip, shared by guillaume.babin, shares an easy way to start your own list of quotations.

Each day I add a wisdom sentence as a task (#wisdom) with a repetition in one year. So after one year I will have automatically each day a wisdom sentence for my day.

Thanks for sharing this tip, guillaume.babin! 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.

Adding tasks with Smart Add is super fast, but what if it could be even faster?

With the latest update to our apps for Mac, Windows¹, and Linux², you can add tasks faster than ever with Smart Add on the desktop. Just use a quick keyboard shortcut to bring up Smart Add wherever you are, and start adding!

The Smart Add Hotkeys on each platform are:

• Mac: ⌥ + ⌘ + M
  
• Windows: Ctrl + Alt + M
  
• Linux: Ctrl + Alt + M
  

Prefer a different keyboard shortcut? Head to ‘Account settings’ then ‘Desktop’ to change it. Alternatively, you can also access Smart Add by clicking on the cow icon in the menu bar (Mac), or right-clicking on the cow icon in the system tray (Windows and Linux).

Once you’re done typing your task, hit the Enter key to instantly add it. Want to keep adding more tasks? Press Shift + Enter (instead of just Enter), and Smart Add will stay on the screen, ready for you to add another task (or whole bunch of tasks!).

We hope you enjoy using Smart Add on the desktop! :)

¹ Available on Windows 10 only at this time (sorry to those on other versions!).
² Please see the instructions for enabling Smart Add for the Linux app.

For yearly events, it’s easy to fall back on what you did the year before as you plan the details. This week’s tip, shared by aforementionedthoughts, is part diary / part planner, using our Evernote integration and reminders to force your reflections to the front of your mind as you make this year’s events and holidays that much better. :)

With events that happen every year, it’s so easy to forget what was successful the year before when it comes time to prepare again. I finally started to create reflection notes in my Evernote account a day or two after the event. Then I create a task in my Remember the Milk account due 11 months from the event with a link to the Evernote note with the reflection details. Then I am reminded of what worked and did not work at the time I start to prepare the next year. This works great with holidays as well!

Thanks for sharing this tip, aforementionedthoughts! 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.

Repeating tasks can keep you productive day in and day out, but darhull’s tip takes things to another level this week—using repeating tasks, reminders, and estimates to build a habitual routine out of your tasks.

I enjoyed Grant’s post here. I’ve also been using RTM for habits. Here’s how I’m doing it.

I like to create certain “flows”. For example, a morning routine, an evening routine, and then some workflows for my day.

Let’s use “Morning Routine” as an example here. Here’s how I set that up.

1. I write out a list of habits/tasks I’d like to have in my morning routine and order them according to how I think they should work. (I use Google Keep for this step.)
   
2. I test that list out over a couple of weeks, and play with it - adding, deleting, re-ordering it - until it feels like it’s working.
   
3. Once the routine is feeling good, I time each activity and put a start time at the beginning of each habit (4:00 get up, 4:05 put on water to boil, 4:06 do two minute exercise routine… etc).
   
4. Once the timing is in place, I add one thing on the list, each week, starting at the top, to my RTM tasks. Once they’re in RTM they’re a fixed task which means I no longer have a choice as to whether I complete it or not. I work to truly turn one item in my flow list to a habit each week. I can negotiate anything that isn’t in RTM, but once it’s in RTM it’s set in stone.
   

I have a Moto360 watch, and have set up notifications on RTM that signal my watch. Now when I get up I have my watch and RTM keep me on track for my morning routine. This stops me from getting sidetracked on Facebook, or taking too long to get my act together. It creates its own adrenaline. Bonus is I also try to complete each task before the watch buzzes again.

What I also love is RTM’s ability to duplicate tasks. I have four “high powered” work days each week (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday) where I get up early, and one more relaxed workday each week (Wednesday) where I get up later but still wish to complete everything in my morning/evening routines. Once the habit is in RTM for my high powered days, I simply duplicate the task and set the time to an hour later for the relaxed days.

I’ve been playing with this for quite a while, and now I have a solid morning routine in place, and half an evening routine in place. This makes a huge difference to my productivity and mindset!

Thanks for sharing this tip, darhull! 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.

There’s a lot inside Remember The Milk. Bob’s been coding for more than a decade without so much of a hint of a complaint. (We think the supply of bananas has helped!)

But with all those years of work on new features and tools, even Bob has almost forgotten just how many ways there are to add tasks fast, create and sort lists, get reminded anywhere he goes, and never forget a thing.

We’ve tapped into Bob’s memory to deliver to you the app’s special abilities that, until now, might have been overlooked.

Let’s go through our favorite monkey’s first brilliantly useful tips for getting the most out of Remember The Milk for your busy life.

1. Your words can be powerful - add tasks by voice!

Had a great idea in the car but no hands to jot it down? Need a quick way to add a reminder to buy more olive oil while cooking, but your hands are a mess?

Voice activation helps you add tasks no matter what you’re doing or how busy you are while on the go.

Apple’s Siri on iOS and all Alexa-enabled devices (US only) can help you take down new tasks and reminders.

Android isn’t left out either, with a special homescreen widget for your homescreen to grab your tasks as you go via the microphone. Voice power!

2. Smart Lists give you eagle vision

Bob’s been talking about Smart Lists, well, forever.

It’s a handy way to help you find you all the tasks that have been tagged with ‘#Work’ and ‘#Urgent’, for example.

That’s easy, sure.

But what about super advanced Smart Lists that open up new ways to find, track, and get things done on time - and only show you tasks you’re interested in right now? 🐵

Here’s some ideas:

Note takers rejoice - your notes on tasks are searchable too

Do you keep notes with your tasks to add more detail? You can deep search or even build a Smart List that shows you tasks that have important keywords in the notes in the task, allowing your whole diary of thoughts and notes to become completely searchable.

Try noteContains:”top secret”

Letting tasks slip? No more!

A due:never Smart List query shows you anything you haven’t categorized, which is a fast way to clean up your lingering tasks and get them into line.

Bucket List

The same query (due:never) is also a way of sorting through your tasks that aren’t necessarily ‘must-dos’ but more like a Sticky Note that says ‘Visit the Greek Islands one day’. Don’t be afraid to add more bucket list items that can get caught by the same search. Never stop dreaming!

Godmode-level tip

Creating a task inside a Smart List will mean that task inherits the Smart List criteria by default. How can this work for you? Well, how about a Smart List that shows all your high priority tasks that are due today and located at the office.

That’s a search that goes priority:1 AND location:office

Any tasks added to this Smart List will automatically inherit all these properties! It’s the fastest way to add a bunch of tasks with the identical features such as a big project.

3. Smart Add turns you into a wizard

There’s no secret that less clicks = less hassle.

Smart Add can make things happen so fast, you might believe you’re magic.

Simply type in your task and then add operators to define all the properties of the task.

# adds a tag or a list, * adds a repeat and many more - plus you can finish your task with a note via the // operator.

And the wizardry doesn’t stop there! Smart Add understands what you mean if you say repeat every 7 days, every week, or every third Monday in a month. (Some say it understands you better than you do!)

Smart Add Shortcuts

! Priority
~ Start Date
^ Due Date
* Repeat
= Estimate
# List/Tags
@ Location
+ Give to
// Note

4. Keyboard shortcuts gives your fingertips turbo power

Keyboard shortcuts are one of those things you didn’t realize could be so good.

Here’s a taste of turbo power at your fingertips:

• Leap between your lists at the speed of light in an instant by hitting g then i for Inbox, g then a for All Tasks, g then t for Today, and so much more.
  
• Hit a key once for actions - press c to complete, p to postpone, d to change due date, e to change your time estimate, all on the fly.
  
• Select all your tasks at once (* then a) or (* then v) to select overdue tasks.
  
• Deselect all / select none by hitting the Esc key.
  
• Want to see all your shortcuts? ? is right! Press ? to open shortcuts help and see all the keyboard shortcuts.
  

Bonus! Many of these keyboard shortcuts work the same as in Gmail, which means you’ll be tapping your way through without needing to touch a mouse or trackpad on multiple apps.

5. Locations: Where you are powers what you need to do, in more ways than one

Having tasks associated with locations is a super powerful way of both remembering things, and using where you are to filter out things you don’t need right there.

Remember The Milk offers the ability to set tasks for any location you can find on a map so that where you are helps define what you should get done.

For example, you might want an office or home location, or even a location called ‘New York’ that could help you remember tasks you need to do on your next trip to the Big Apple.

From our web app on a desktop, the apps on iOS and Android also know where you’re located when you’re on the move as well, which gives you the option of the ‘Nearby’ feature to see nearby tasks as well.

You can also use the locatedWithin search across all platforms to create Smart Lists that show nearby tasks.

Bonus tip: Use tags for contexts

What about tasks that aren’t quite so tied to a physical location? This is where the magic of tagging comes in!

For example, if you tag tasks with #internet, that could be for tasks that require an internet connection.

The same goes for #plane for those tasks that you want to assign to an upcoming flight. (Lucky you!)

And if you tag every task that you need to make as a phone call with #call, you can then tackle all the #call tasks in one power session.

6. Sorting, grouping, ordering: your filing system now comes fully loaded

Lists are great and all, but what about when you want to see your tasks in a list, grouped and sorted just the way you want?

You can sort by priority and due dates. Standard but good.

But what about grouping by tag and sorting by start date?

There’s options to sort your tasks by just about any criteria.

One you might not have thought of is ‘task source’ - sort by the app where you added the tasks in case you’re tracking what tasks you added on the fly.

For example, you can sort your tasks by where you added them, either via the Android app, or the web app. Or any of our apps!

7. Advanced search makes you faster than a CSI

Can’t find an extremely important task given to you by a colleague from three years ago that is surely lost forever?

Advanced search can help - click the arrow button in the search box and start drilling down into any sort of deep detail you can imagine.

Add in multiple criteria to search for tasks given by a person, search for a due date before a certain date, and the status is complete. Then continue to refine by words in the task, if it has a URL or not, or even words in the notes on the task.

Yeaaahhhhh!

(•_•)
( •_•)>⌐■-■
(⌐■_■)

8. Managing projects (and holidays!) like a boss: Tasks + subtasks + subtask subtasks?

Tasks alone are powerful, but with subtasks, now there’s no limit to how much detail you can add to a task. With subtasks of subtasks possible, just one task can now be a whole complex project full of time estimates, due dates, start dates, and detailed notes.

Here’s just one example - create a task called ‘Packing for holidays’ without a due date.

Add a subtask for summer locations, add a subtask for winter locations, and for any other locations where you know you’ll need something specific.

Within the summer subtask, add further subtasks for everything you’ll need for a summer holiday: swimmers, flip-flops, sunscreen, insect repellant, beach body.

Within the winter subtask, do the same and build out a list for a winter holiday:
Boots, coat, beanie, gloves, thermal underwear.

After each trip away, update the list with extra thing you found useful so that you’re ready for the next trip.

Utilize those tasks whenever you need!

9. Use an RSS feed of your tasks to achieve …anything!

We admit, sometimes there are so many features, you can’t even know just what you’re suppose to do with them all. So why does Remember The Milk offer RSS feeds?

An RSS feed of your tasks and completions can be used to track tasks in a huge variety of complementary tool and apps.

Want to push your tasks due that day into an RSS reader for your morning reading on the train? Now you can.

Want to publish a list of tasks from Remember The Milk for a project into a Wiki? RSS might be your answer.

One clever Remember The Milk user even uses his RSS feeds for certain task lists so that he constantly has a list of phone calls to make available to him. Automagical!

10. Inbox Zen: BCC yourself to remind you to follow up on emails

You might not have known that you can email to your own personal and unique Remember The Milk email address to ingest tasks.

Want to remind yourself to follow up on email later, and hate not getting to Inbox Zero?

Bcc yourself on an email to remind you to follow it up later. It’ll change your world.

I just realized that I could BCC Remember the Milk on my emails. Everything is different now.

— Gunnar Hellekson (@ghelleks)

January 10, 2013

11. Review what you’ve achieved - productivity hero status awaits!

Be encouraged by how productive you are by looking back to see just how many tasks you crushed.

You can run a search query to find out how many tasks you’ve completed in the past month:

completedWithin:“1 month of Today”

Or tasks completed in the past year:

completedWithin:“1 year of Today”

Or even all-time:

status:completed

Plus! At the end of each year, Bob will let you know where you can review and even tweet your #rtmstats, too. Nothing like a bit of competition to keep you on your toes!

I completed 3,281 tasks with @rememberthemilk in 2016 #rtmstats

— Bob T. Monkey (@bobtmonkey)

December 27, 2016

Prioritizing your tasks can be an important step in feeling organized, but it can feel like it takes too much extra time. This week’s tip, shared by hiteshnh, suggests using the advanced sorting to prioritize your tasks automatically.

Why settle for just priorities when you can do much more with RTM’s advanced sort?

Inspired by Stephen R. Covey’s time management tips, I interpret the priority system in RTM in the following way:

1. Important and urgent
   
2. Important and not urgent
   
3. Urgent and not important
   
4. Not urgent and not important
   

While creating tasks, I assign priorities using the above inference. The idea is to work off important tasks first.

Second, I name lists in ascending order of importance in my life. So this would look something like this:

• 1-Personal
  
• 2-Study
  
• 3-Project A
  
• 4-Project B
  

And so on.

When using ascending sort, this ensures I work off projects that are of more importance to me.

Next level of sort criteria is due date – straight forward.

You can add another layer – like date added, to ensure you complete tasks that are hanging around for longer than the more recently added ones.

So overall my custom sort order would look like:

• Sort by – priority – ascending
  
• Then by – list – ascending
  
• Then by – due date – ascending
  
• Then by – added date – ascending
  

Work off tasks from top to bottom of the sorted list and embrace productivity!

Thanks for sharing this tip, hiteshnh! 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.

Paying your bills on time can be super satisfying, and can even save you some money. This week, aforementionedthoughts shares a tip on keeping track of them easily to save a bit of extra money.

Remember The Milk is a key part of my process to make sure I am able to save money by paying medical bills early. Most hospitals will let you take a discount if you pay off the bill before a certain date. When we receive the bill, I place a reminder in RTM for a week before that date (I give a buffer just in case I run into any issues) and make sure I pay by that date. Thanks to this process, RTM has helped me save hundreds of dollars over the years!

Thanks for sharing this tip, aforementionedthoughts! 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.

If you keep track of follow-up tasks, you probably know that sometimes it can feel like tasks upon tasks. This week, jjcardil shares a tip to keep those follow-ups together in a Smart List and, well, to follow up on them.

One of the challenges I face with my to-do lists are followup actions. I don’t like adding followup actions to my lists as most followups are similar or the same as the original task that I think I completed. I also don’t like keeping an item on the list until the followup is done. Both approaches seem to just “clog” up my lists.

I found the perfect solution, a Followup Smart List. I created a Smart List that is generated if the action contains the word followup. Now when I complete a task that requires followup, I add a task with the first work being Followup and it automatically goes on my Followup Smart List. Every few days I scan the Followup list and take action on the ones that have been sitting too long.

Thanks for sharing this tip, jjcardil! 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.

Having your birthdays separate from your other tasks can make it harder to organize. This week’s tip comes from alex1ua, who suggests putting all birthdays and events in your tasks. Then you’ll have all of them in one place and can keep track not only of birthdays but other “anniversaries” as well.

Since I am using Remember The Milk for managing all my daily tasks, I stopped checking my phone’s calendar for upcoming birthdays of my friends. I plan my tight schedule in Remember The Milk, and only in the evening see reminders on birthdays from my phone’s calendar, when it is too late even for a call.

The solution was found in a special task “birthdays and anniversaries”, which has subtask for each birthday or anniversary of my friends and colleagues. All tasks have the “repeat every year” setting, so they repeat next year.

I found two unexpected benefits from this technique: now there is a single place where I can see all upcoming birthdays, and I can have a list of special dates for each person - birthdays, anniversaries of weddings, birthdays of children, anniversaries of work etc - all of them have a separate task (the “contacts” application on my phone does not provide such flexibility).

Planning tasks in this manner helps all my friends to hear congratulations or get presents on time.

Thanks for sharing this tip, alex1ua! 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.

Keeping a packing list is indispensable for making sure you pack everything you need for your trips. This week’s tip, shared by quam, combines the Remember The Milk email import service with task notes to keep templates for future trips always handy and ready to be added.

How many times have I entered a plane or opened the suitcase at the hotel realizing I had forgotten something? Toothbrush, slippers, charger cable, or my favourite shampoo.

Here’s a way to generate packing lists for the different type of trips you make:

• First create a list called something like “Packing”.
• Then create a task called something like “PackingLists” with lowest priority and no due date.
• Now you add notes to this task, like for example:

  --skiing vacations
  scarf !3 ^today 
  gloves !2 ^today
  sun glasses !1 ^today
  UV protection lipstick !1 ^today
  and more items...
  -end-
  
  -- business trip 3 days
  2 ties !2 ^today
  3 shirts !1 ^today
  pair of spare shoes !3 ^today
  business cards !1 ^today
  and more items...
  -end-

Now when it’s time to pack your bag, just search the PackingList task, copy the text from one of your notes, and send it to your RTM import email address with the subject “Packing”.

Whenever you want to add an item, you can edit the note or create a new one for a new kind of trip: e.g. Christmas holidays at Mom’s, or business trip 5 days.

You could also share the list with all of your travel buddies.

Hope this might help you, and you never ever forget a thing when traveling.

Thanks for sharing this tip, quam! 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.

As you may have heard, this week a new security vulnerability was announced in Cloudflare’s technology. This vulnerability is known as Cloudbleed.

Cloudflare is used to deliver content by many of the world’s websites, including Remember The Milk. Cloudflare has informed us that none of our data was known to be leaked into third-party caches.

That said, we take a very cautious approach to security. As a proactive measure, we logged out all browser sessions that were active prior to the vulnerability being addressed; you may have been logged out and asked to log back in again.

To be extra cautious, we recommend changing your Remember The Milk password (see help). With Cloudflare’s technology being behind many of the largest consumer web services, many experts recommend that you take this opportunity to change all of your online passwords.

Do you have some lists or Smart Lists that feel a tad more important than others? Maybe there are tags or locations that you use pretty often? Or contacts that you’re frequently giving tasks to? (Hi, Bob!)

Our new Favorites feature is for you! Choose your favorite lists, Smart Lists, tags, locations, and contacts, and have them all displayed in their very own Favorites group. Now there’s no more hunting through the navigation for those super important lists or contacts!

Favoriting in the web and desktop apps

1. Hover over the list (or Smart List, tag, location, contact, etc) you wish to favorite in the left navigation column.
   
2. Click on the dropdown arrow to the right of the name to display list options.
   
3. Click Add to Favorites.
   

Favoriting in the Android  app

Note: Make sure you update to the latest app version first! In this example, we’re favoriting a list, but you can favorite Smart Lists, tags, locations, and contacts, too.

1. Navigate to the Lists section in the left menu.
   
2. Tap the list you wish to favorite to bring up its task list.
   
3. Tap the Title Bar at the top of the screen and then tap Edit list.
   
4. Tap the Favorites field and select Show in Favorites.
   
5. Tap Save.

Favoriting in the iOS app

Note: Make sure you update to the latest app version first! In this example, we’re favoriting a list, but you can favorite Smart Lists, tags, locations, and contacts, too.

1. Navigate to the Lists section in the left menu.
   
2. Tap the list you wish to favorite to bring up its task list.
   
3. Tap the Title Bar at the top of the screen and then tap Edit list.
   
4. Tap Add to Favorites.
   
5. Tap Save.
   

We hope you enjoy favoriting all the important things. :)

Keeping in touch with friends feels like one of those things that should happen automatically, but we all know it doesn’t always work that way. This week’s tip comes from kurtvan, who suggests tasks that repeat on a random interval so you don’t become too predictable. :)

I know this seems a little odd to write – if you have friends, you should always be in touch with them, right? – but after a Christmas of filling out cards and saying, “man, I haven’t talked to this person in forever,” I’ve turned to RTM for help.

I’ve got a list of those friends, and a reminder to “Say hi to” or “Send an email to” each of them. To make sure it’s not a one-off, I’ve made it a recurring task for some random period of time: 57 days, 126 days, 245 days, etc. I sure expect to talk with them before that, but now I have a regular reminder if life gets busy… and they don’t get in the mind frame of, “It’s the 1st of the month, I should get another email today.”

Thanks for sharing this tip, kurtvan! 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.

Making a list of books you want to read and have read is a nice way to always have something at the ready. dillo99 shares a tip this week, laying out a nice way to keep track of everything easily—series of books, articles and websites too!

My wife and I read a lot and we often read series. Unfortunately I can’t always remember what I have read and it is especially difficult if I am looking up a series to see if anything is new. I use this system to track what I’ve read and what I want to read.

Step 1: Create a list called “Books”

Step 2: Anytime anyone suggests you read a book, add it to the list. I always enter the book as “Title, Author (Series - #).” Series is only entered if this is part of a series. So an example might be: “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson (Millennium – 1).”

Step 3: After you read a book, mark it as complete. If you want to see all your read books you can just select “Completed” on the RTM interface.

Step 4: If you are reading a series, go ahead and enter the next book in the series as soon as you hear about it. Even if you don’t know the name of the book, go ahead and enter a marker for the next member of the series “(Millennium – 2)”. You can even embed a link to the author’s website so you can always easily get a status on the next book in the series. If you know the date the book comes out you can enter that as a due date and then easily check back when that date pops up. Your read list should now contain all of the series you are currently reading or plan to read.

Step 5: If you want to get fancy and you read lots of different types of stuff (articles, web sites, books, etc.) you can use the same approach but add some tags. To use that method I would create two lists – one called “Read Work” and one called “Read Pleasure”. Enter your items to read as described above but you may want to add a tag if the item is an “Article” or a “Book”. You can also set up recurring web sites that you want to visit – just enter a date and set up a recurring task at whatever frequency you want.

That’s about it! Happy Reading!

Thanks for sharing this tip, dillo99! 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.

If you’re sharing lists with others, or even if not, it can be helpful to keep track of tasks that are in progress. This week’s tip, shared by jamezzz, uses two features—giving tasks and tags—to keep track of those tasks in creative ways.

I was looking for a way mark items “In Progress” so I could quickly see a list of tasks I’m actively working on. I also wanted these tasks to stand out somehow in larger lists. I discovered two very convenient ways to do this in RTM.

1) Since I’m the only cow in the barn I don’t use the sharing features, but I can still assign tasks to myself. So for tasks that are In Progress I simply assign them to myself then I have a simple Smart List that shows those tasks ‘givenTo:me’. This also works great in larger lists because my face prominently shows up next to those In Progress tasks.

2) For those using the sharing features a tag can be used instead. But, how do you get those In Progress tasks to show prominently in larger lists? Simply use the muted colors for most of your tags and reserve the bright colors for tags that need special attention like a tag used for In Progress tasks!

Thanks Bob! Have a another banana!

Thanks for sharing this tip, jamezzz! 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.

If you’re as addicted to online shopping as Bob is, check out this week’s tip. rossgoodman shares a simple way to add a link via Twitter from Amazon or another site that gives you a link to track an item’s shipment.

If you buy lots of items from Amazon (guilty as charged) it can sometimes be difficult to keep track of what you have ordered and when it should be coming and occasionally something can slip through the cracks.

As I have my RTM account and my Twitter account linked, there is a handy feature you can use.

When you complete a purchase with Amazon (UK version at least - I’m assuming it’s the same in the international versions) they give you an option to share with your friends on Facebook, Twitter or Email that “I just bought …”.

If you select the Twitter option and then always make sure you prefix the message with D RTM then the item can be added to your list.

I tend to edit the “I just bought …” to become “Confirm delivery of …” and then add the suffix “#Shopping ^1 week” so that it is categorised correctly.

You can also use the email feature to do the same - but “your” RTM email address is a bit harder to memorise.

Thanks for sharing this tip, rossgoodman! 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.

For night owls, the party doesn’t stop after midnight. With erlloyd’s tip this week, your productivity doesn’t have to suffer either. :) Using a special Smart List, you can customize your “bedtime” and keep up the fun in the wee hours.

I have a late sleep schedule, so I don’t want my “tomorrow” to start until several hours after midnight. I now use a custom search string for my “today” Smart List, which stops tomorrow’s tasks from prematurely clogging my screen. All my new tasks now appear at 4am when I’m asleep!

This is especially nice when I am almost done a day’s tasks and want to stay up late finishing the last few. Normally, my lists would be hit by an avalanche of new tasks at exactly midnight. Distracting, and more than a bit overwhelming! Now I can work in peace at night and go to bed feeling accomplished and relaxed with a truly empty task list.

Stop the avalanche

Delay each new day’s tasks from rolling over early and have them appear on lists exactly when you need them to. You can choose your own day start time, whether that is 2:00am, 4:00am, or even later in the morning.

Here’s the search string I use for a 4am rollover (separated into three lines for easier readability):

dueBefore:4am 
AND NOT (due:tomorrow AND dueBefore:12:01am)
AND NOT (due:today AND dueBefore:"today 12:01am" AND dueWithin:"1 day of 20h")

Here’s how the string works, line by line:

Line 1) Finds all overdue tasks and tasks due that day or in the early hours of the next (rolls over at 4am). Before midnight current time, this will include all tasks due before 4am the next day. After midnight current time, this will still include only the same tasks (overdue and due up until 4am later that same day).

Line 2) Filters out all tasks that come due the next day without a specific due time (RTM’s inner workings treat these as due 12:00am). These are the ones we don’t want to see until after our rollover set time. At times after midnight, though, this filter won’t work; a third section is needed!

Line 3) During nighttime before 4am, this part filters out any tasks due in the *same* day without a specific due time. It includes a workaround to make sure the filer is ONLY active in the first few hours after midnight. These tasks will join the list after rollover happens at 4am (or at your chosen time).

The neat workaround in this search is dueWithin:“1 day of 20h”. This criteria looks for tasks due on the same day as whatever day it will be 20 hours in the future. So at 1am, 20h later is 9pm but still the same day and returns today’s tasks. At 11am, 20h later is 7am the next day, so will return tomorrow’s tasks (leaving the current day’s unscheduled due tasks untouched). It worked well as a fix to replace my original dueWithin:4h, which RTM does not recognize.

Customize this search to your own sleep schedule

1) Choose your preferred rollover time: e.g., 5am
2) Change dueBefore:4am to the new time: dueBefore:5am
3) Subtract your chosen time from 24: 24 - 5 = 19h
4) Change dueWithin:“1 day of 20h” to match your number from step 3: dueWithin:“1 day of 19h”

Use this search string to create one or more custom-timed Smart Lists to use instead of the default “Today” list. OR…

Add this functionality to existing Smart Lists by throwing brackets around the entire code and connecting it to other criteria via. “AND”. (Make sure you also first remove any “dueBefore:tomorrow” criteria already in your search string.)

Warning: If you use this tip, don’t set any time-critical tasks to be due at the specific time of midnight; RTM treats the “no due time” tasks exactly like these ones, and neither type will show up until 4am!

Credit: This tip was inspired by igorrs’ custom-timed rollover idea, but takes things a step further by including protection from midnight task-dumps.

Thanks for sharing this tip, erlloyd! 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.

Reviewing your tasks can be helpful, but it can also be tedious to stay on top of. This week’s tip, shared by fizzyice, brings some automation to reviewing your tasks in a Smart List using the updated date—you don’t even need to rely on start or due dates! :)

I don’t want to clutter up my today view or other lists by giving projects and tasks unnecessary start or due dates when they are ‘someday’ or on ‘hold’ etc. Often these projects/task are out of sight, overlooked, or forgotten.

This is a review system so these projects and tasks pop up on a regular basis (after a specified time) in a review list so I can decided what to do with them, or review them again later. Once the system is set up only a tag is needed.

Step 1

Create a Smart List, mine is called: r-s

Use the query editor, paste following:

(tag:r-1d AND updatedWithin:"1 day of today") OR 
(tag:r-2d AND updatedWithin:"2 days of today") OR 
(tag:r-3d AND updatedWithin:"3 days of today") OR 
(tag:r-4d AND updatedWithin:"4 days of today") OR 
(tag:r-5d AND updatedWithin:"5 days of today") OR 
(tag:r-6d AND updatedWithin:"6 days of today") OR 
(tag:r-1w AND updatedWithin:"1 week of today") OR 
(tag:r-2w AND updatedWithin:"2 weeks of today") OR 
(tag:r-3w AND updatedWithin:"3 weeks of today") OR 
(tag:r-1m AND updatedWithin:"1 month of today") OR 
(tag:r-2m AND updatedWithin:"2 months of today") OR 
(tag:r-3m AND updatedWithin:"3 months of today") OR 
(tag:r-6m AND updatedWithin:"6 months of today")

(I’ve placed this Smart List out of the way at the bottom of the Smart section as don’t need to see it.)

Step 2

Create another Smart List, mine is called: 😎 Review

Enter following query:

tagContains:r- AND NOT list:r-s

(I’ve placed this Smart List near the top of the Smart section where I can easily see it.)

Step 3

Create final Smart List, mine is called: No start/due/r-

Enter query:

start:never AND due:never AND NOT tagContains:r-

(I don’t want to see subtasks so I’ve added: AND isSubtask:false)

This will capture all projects/tasks that don’t have start/due dates or a tag that contains r-

These are the projects/tasks to tag.

Result

To review a project/task in 3 days time, tag it: r-3d

…3 days later it will automatically show up in Smart List: 😎 Review

NOTE: Amending the projects/tasks with the r- tags will reset the review date.

Remove tag when no longer need to review; or re-set review date by amending task in some way.

(I use a - tag that has no function, and just add/delete it).

I have not tested it for long but it seems to work, let me know if any different.

Hope this is of use.

Thanks for sharing this tip, fizzyice! 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.

It’s been a busy year for us at Remember The Milk! Bob can barely remember all the things we got up to, so we thought we’d end the year by sharing some of our favorite happenings from 2016.

The new Remember The Milk

We kicked off the year with a big launch. We built a new Remember The Milk from the ground up, and brought you a whole set of shiny new apps. We launched new apps for the web, Mac desktop, iPhone, iPad, Android phones & tablets, BlackBerry 10, and Fire.

We were also able to pack in a whole bunch of (much requested!) new features. Some of the highlights were subtasks, drag and drop reordering, tag colors, all-new sharing, notifications, individual task reminders, advanced sorting, start dates, and offline mode for the web app. Bob doesn’t know how he ever lived without subtasks!

Bring on the desktop apps

Desktop apps for Remember The Milk were a hugely popular request (and Bob was pretty keen to have them, too!). We were excited to launch apps for both Windows and Linux, which joined our Mac app to complete our little desktop apps family. These apps bring all the functionality you get in your browser into a handy standalone version, and you can get desktop notifications, too.

On a technical note, we also ended up rebuilding our Mac app, switching to a shiny new Chrome-based engine provided by Electron. This made things much faster (and as a bonus, less buggy too!).

Android app updates

Since releasing whole new Android and iOS apps early in the year, we’ve continued to improve our mobile apps with a bunch of updates throughout the year. On Android, we added support for multi-window and Smart Lock, made it possible to see statistics at a glance, added an option to quickly add due and start times, and fixed an assortment of annoying bugs.

And iOS app updates, too

Over on iOS, we added 3D Touch support to our app. The app icon shows the last two views visited when using 3D Touch, and we now have a compact overview widget too! (Did you know that you can also 3D Touch tasks and notes to quickly look at them? No? Well now you do! :)

We added Complete/Postpone actions to task reminder notifications, so you can complete or postpone tasks super quickly on your iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch. We also released a share extension, made it possible to see statistics at a glance, and added an option to quickly add due and start times.

Alexa, meet Remember The Milk!

This was one of our favorite launches. Our Skill for Alexa brings the power of Remember The Milk to your Alexa-enabled device. Tell Alexa to remind you, and she’ll add the task to your list. Ready to get things done? Just ask Alexa what’s due today. Need some help? Ask Alexa to give a task to a contact, like the ever-helpful Bob T. Monkey. (Our Alexa integration is US only right now, sorry to non-US folks!)

Be on the bleeding edge

Do you want bug fixes and performance improvements even if things could be slightly less stable? We launched release channels for our web and desktop apps, just for you! Choose whether you want to be on the “stable” release channel (the default), or the “beta” channel. You can find this setting under Account settings -> General -> Release Channel.

Introducing themes

This was another of our favorite new features. You can now choose from over 100 beautiful themes to make the web and desktop apps your own. From reviewing the most popular themes, we now know that you guys really like coffee (hey, us too!) and space (both the nebula and moon themes were very popular).

A faster MilkSync

We couldn’t leave out Microsoft Outlook syncing! We updated MilkSync so that it starts up much faster, plus added support for our new start dates feature. Oh, and Bob fixed a bunch of bugs too. :)

The team, in person!

Our team is distributed around the world, with Remember The Milk team members living on four different continents (with five different time zones!). We were lucky to get the opportunity earlier this year to get together in real life with the people (and monkey) we work with every day. From chocolate tours to glow-in-the-dark mini golf to competitive oatmeal-eating, we had a great time in Montreal.

What’s next?

Bob and the rest of the team are busy cooking up new stuff and working to improve Remember The Milk. We can’t wait to share what we’re working on! We’re on a never-ending quest to make the world more organized and productive, so be sure to let us know how we can help you. ;)

Thanks for using Remember The Milk, and happy holidays from everyone on the team! :)

For this update to the web and desktop apps, Bob’s been busy making some small improvements and squishing bugs. Here’s what’s new in this release:

Version 2023 – December 16, 2016

• Improved: You can now reset your Inbox and Import Email Addresses. You can find this option under Account settings -> Email Tasks.
  
• Fixed: The web app would freeze when attempting to modify the due date of a task in some cases.
  
• Fixed: Due date and repeat parsing issues in French and Russian.
  
• Fixed: A whole bunch of fixes for our Themes feature.
  
• Updated: Our timezone database for all the latest changes around the world.
  
• Updated: All localizations.
  

Found a bug? Got feedback? Please get in touch and let us know!

Are you looking for the perfect gift for the productivity obsessed? Or maybe you know someone who needs a friendly nudge to get organized? Give them Remember The Milk Pro, and we’ll give you a little something too. :)

For each 1 year Gift Pro account that you buy between now and December 31, 2016, you’ll receive 3 months of Pro for yourself. If you’re the generous type and buy a 2 year gift, you’ll get 6 months of Pro for yourself!

When you purchase a Gift Pro account, we’ll give you a special gift code to give to the lucky recipient (you can send it via email, or print out a nifty gift card). All the recipient needs to do is enter their code at a special page, and the Pro account is theirs!

The full details are available at our Holiday Special page. Happy holidays, everyone!

In our latest update, a compact overview widget is available on iOS 10 when using 3D Touch on the app icon. This allows you to super quickly see what your day is looking like. :)

Aside from this handy new feature, here’s what you’ll find in version 4.1.10:

• Fixed: Completing the same repeating task in the app and via other interfaces at the same time could sometimes lead to an orphaned task on the device.
  
• Fixed: Postponing a task with a due time from a notification doesn’t work properly in some cases.
  
• Fixed: Repeat rule parsing issues in Dutch and Russian.
  
• Fixed: “addedWithin” search operator didn’t return the correct results in some cases.
  
• Updated: All localizations.
  

Bob hopes you like the update! :)

We have an update for our Android app that squishes a bunch of annoying bugs (yay!). Here’s what you’ll find in version 4.1.5:

• New: Updated for Android 7.1.
  
• Fixed: Completing the same repeating task in the app and via other interfaces at the same time could sometimes lead to an orphaned task on the device.
  
• Fixed: Postponing a task with a due time from a notification doesn’t work properly in some cases.
  
• Fixed: Repeat rule parsing issues in Dutch and Russian.
  
• Fixed: “addedWithin” search operator didn’t return the correct results in some cases.
  
• Updated: Timezone database to tzdata2016j.
  
• Updated: All localizations.
  

Enjoy! :)

Some projects require a large set of tasks in sequence but specific to each project. Wouldn’t it be nice to quickly create a customized set of tasks for each project? This week, pszaro shares a tip using TextExpander to generate a custom sequence of tasks that can be emailed in to your tasks.

I am currently involved in a major project where we are building out 400+ servers. Each build requires multiple tasks from start to finish, so I came up with a list of things that would be needed for every build and created a snippet in TextExpander. Once the snippet is executed, a popup menu prompts for the server name, location of server and due date. Once that is populated in the body of the email message, I email my RTM email address and within seconds, all my tasks are available. I then drag SubTask 0-10 into the main task (line 1).

Here is an example:

Server Build: %filltext:name=hostname% (%filltext:name=location%) #serverbuild !1 ^%filltext:name=date% %key:enter%
%filltext:name=hostname% SubTask 0: Assign initial ticket created by App Team for build #serverbuild !1 ^%filltext:name=date% %key:enter%
%filltext:name=hostname% SubTask 1: Request new IP's and DNS entries #serverbuild !1 ^%filltext:name=date% %key:enter%
%filltext:name=hostname% SubTask 2: Create CMDB CI asset (build) #serverbuild !1 ^%filltext:name=date% %key:enter%
%filltext:name=hostname% SubTask 3: Carve out LPAR via Tool Kit #serverbuild !1 ^%filltext:name=date% %key:enter%
%filltext:name=hostname% SubTask 3a: Request boot LUNs #serverbuild !1 ^%filltext:name=date% %key:enter%
%filltext:name=hostname% SubTask 3b: Confirm boot LUNs #serverbuild !1 ^%filltext:name=date% %key:enter%
%filltext:name=hostname% SubTask 3c: Complete logout via Tool Kit #serverbuild !1 ^%filltext:name=date% %key:enter%
%filltext:name=hostname% SubTask 4: AIX OS Installation via GI (mksysb) #serverbuild !1 ^%filltext:name=date% %key:enter%
%filltext:name=hostname% SubTask 5: AIX OS Customization via workbook #serverbuild !1 ^%filltext:name=date% %key:enter%
%filltext:name=hostname% SubTask 5a: Configure EPV #serverbuild !1 ^%filltext:name=date% %key:enter%
%filltext:name=hostname% SubTask 5c: Add accounts to new Centrify dzdo group #serverbuild !1 ^%filltext:name=date% %key:enter%
%filltext:name=hostname% SubTask 5d: Configure flat txt Networker Backups #serverbuild !1 ^%filltext:name=date% %key:enter%
%filltext:name=hostname% SubTask 6: Request SWAP LUNs, 64gb (if needed) #serverbuild !1 ^%filltext:name=date% %key:enter%
%filltext:name=hostname% SubTask 7: Request App LUNs (if needed) #serverbuild !1 ^%filltext:name=date% %key:enter%
%filltext:name=hostname% SubTask 7a: Configure App LUNs/File Systems (if needed) #serverbuild !1 ^%filltext:name=date% %key:enter%
%filltext:name=hostname% SubTask 8: Copy over SOURCE server host keys (/etc/ssh) #serverbuild !1 ^%filltext:name=date% %key:enter%
%filltext:name=hostname% SubTask 8: Copy over SOURCE user specific keys (.ssh) #serverbuild !1 ^%filltext:name=date% %key:enter%
%filltext:name=hostname% SubTask 8: Copy over SOURCE server user home directories (/home) #serverbuild !1 ^%filltext:name=date% %key:enter%
%filltext:name=hostname% SubTask 9: Turnover to App Team #serverbuild !1 ^%filltext:name=date% %key:enter%
%filltext:name=hostname% SubTask 10: Harden Server, Move CI to RUN status in CMDB via RFC #serverbuild !1 ^%filltext:name=date% %key:enter%

Hope this helps anyone that needs to perform high level tasks for a project with multiple subtasks. Made my life much easier and I was always organized!

Thanks for sharing this tip, pszaro! 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.

Building habits involves a fair amount of repetition and motivation. This week, grant shares a tip of using repeating tasks in Remember The Milk alongside a daily task to build your desired habits and to keep them going.

Recently I’ve been using Remember The Milk to build some habits that I’ve had more or less a hard time building (either because of forgetfulness or laziness).

For example, I try to take Omega 3 supplements every evening before dinner, but sometimes I forget.

I also try to meditate every day, but some days I find watching an episode of Friends on Hulu much more appealing. Having a task asking if I meditated gives me the small nudge I need in order to sit down and clear my mind.

So this is my setup:

1. Create a new list named “Habit Building”.
2. In this list, enter all the habits you wish to get into, in the form of a question. For example, “Did you meditate?”, and “You took Omega-3 before eating dinner… right?” (or however you can phrase it as to up the guilt-factor)
3. Set the tasks to repeat daily, with the due date set to 3 months from now; this way, these tasks won’t clutter up your Today and This Week lists.
4. Create a task named “Check habits”. Make it repeat daily and due today, with the time set to about 10 minutes before you usually to go to bed.

And this is the execution:

1. Wait for your “check habits” task to show up at night to remind you to review your habits.
2. Open the task and complete it.
3. Review your lists of habits. Allow yourself the “reward” of completing the items you succeeded in doing.

I find myself more motivated, because if I don’t meditate, I have Bob T. Monkey to answer to later that night!

Happy habit forming!

Thanks for sharing this tip, grant! 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.

A perennial favorite has been a classic post about setting up GTD in Remember The Milk. After this year’s big update we thought it would be good to highlight a new method. jpuphill shares how you can use subtasks and start dates alongside other Remember The Milk features to, well, get things done.

First of all, I would like to say how helpful this forum has been in helping me come up this approach. I have read so many posts and learnt so much about how people use RTM. I wanted to give something back and so am posting how I have mapped GTD to RTM.

Use Lists for Areas of Focus

I use lists to categorise every task, e.g.

• Family
  
• Friends
  
• Personal
  
• Work
  

N.B. Having all work related tasks in the Work list allows me to easily include/exclude work tasks from Smart Lists.

Use Locations for Contexts

I use either the real location or for virtual locations, I use somewhere I would never be, e.g.

• calls - Arctic Ocean (i.e. nowhere you would ever be)
  
• computer - Arctic Ocean (i.e. nowhere you would ever be)
  
• errands - Arctic Ocean (i.e. nowhere you would ever be)
  
• home - Real Location
  
• office - Real Location
  

Use Tags for non-Scheduled GTD status

• next  - Next Action
  
• wait - Waiting For
  
• someday - Someday / Maybe
  

Use Due Date for Scheduled GTD status

• 11/20/2016 - Scheduled
  

Creating Projects

All tasks with subtasks are regarded as projects and not tasks in themselves.

Creating Tasks

1. Add list to task (e.g. Personal, Work)
   
2. Add location to task (e.g. computer, office)
   
3. Add priority to task
   
4. Add GTD status tag (e.g. next) and/or due date
   

Use Smart Lists for Narrowing Focus

All Projects

hasSubtasks:true

All Tasks

not list:"All Projects"

Classify

list:Inbox or (list:"All Tasks" and isLocated:false) or (start:never and due:never and not (list:"All Projects" or isSubtask:true or tag:next or tag:wait or tag:someday)) or ((tag:next and tag:wait) or (tag:wait and tag:someday) or (tag:next and tag:someday)) or ((tag:next or tag:someday) and not start:never)

(N.B. This list is used to capture tasks that have yet to be classified or are incorrectly classified)

Completed

status:completed

Due Today

dueBefore:tomorrow

Due Tomorrow

due:tomorrow

Due Week

dueBefore:monday

Due Week Next

due:monday or (dueAfter:monday and dueBefore:"next monday")

Next

not (tag:wait or tag:someday) and (tag:next or startBefore:tomorrow or dueBefore:tomorrow)

Next - Personal

list:Next and not list:Work

Next - Work

list:Next and list:Work

Scheduled

not due:never and status:incomplete

(N.B. This list’s iCalendar (Events) is subscribed to in Google Calendar)

Someday

tag:someday

Someday - Personal

list:Someday and not list:Work

Someday - Work

list:Someday and list:Work

Waiting

tag:wait

Waiting - Personal

list:Waiting and not list:Work

Waiting - Work

list:Waiting and list:Work

@Context

list:Next and location:context

(N.B. There is an instance of this list for every context)

Thanks for sharing this tip, jpuphill! 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.

Bob’s favorite colors are blue and white (evidently). While they’re lovely colors, have you ever wondered if Remember The Milk could be… just a tad less blue and white?

Wonder no more! You can now choose from over 100 beautiful themes to make the web and desktop apps your own. Ready for a change? Just click on the gear icon in the top right of the app, and select ‘Themes’.

Themes are available exclusively for Pro users, and we really appreciate your support (Bob’s kept supplied with bananas thanks to you!).

Remember The Milk user stevepaulo has a thorough outline of using Remember The Milk top-to-bottom to stay organized and productive. Borrowing from GTD, the Eisenhower matrix, and using features like Smart Lists and newer features like subtasks and start dates effectively, it is both organized and straightforward.

My personal RTM system has evolved over the years (I’ve been using RTM since 2005). It has been informed by GTD, by the Eisenhower Matrix, and by all manner of other systems and tips I’ve picked up over the years.

With the new updates to the software – especially subtasks and start dates – my system got a huge upgrade, and I barely had to tweak anything. Here’s the gist:

1. Every task in the Inbox

I don’t use static lists. Everything goes into, and stays in, the Inbox. I have ways of surfacing new stuff, as you will see.

2. Locations are actually locations

I use RTM’s location geofencing usually to separate out household tasks that I can only do at home, but also for things that I need to do AT work (and not just while I’m working, which is often remote or from home).

3. Labels are projects

Simple. I have about a dozen labels I use to separate out “sections” of my life. The reason I don’t use static lists for this is because things can cross over. A project might be “dev” because it’s hobbyist development I’m doing, or it could be for work, so it’s also a “career” task. Etc.

4. Priorities

I use the High/Med/Low priorities as visual cues, but my system really only distinguishes between “Important” issues (with Priority 1-3) and “Unimportant” issues (Priority N/4).

5. Repeating tasks

Weekly/Monthly/etc. reminders. I often filter them out or make sure they only bubble up on their due date. This includes a weekly retrospective, when I will look back at the week’s completed tasks, review “Upcoming” for tasks that may need more context/subtasks/etc., and schedule things in the “! Do or Schedule” list. My retrospective usually takes 5 minutes or less, and I do it on Sunday evenings.

6. Smart Lists

The heart of the system. I use seven lists, here are their descriptions and the search terms that build them:

“Upcoming”

dueBefore:"1 week from now" OR startBefore:"1 week from now"

A near-future view of what’s coming up. I will often pay more attention to the *count* of this list than what’s in it, though it’s useful in my weekly retrospective.

“Urgent”

dueBefore:tomorrow OR startBefore:tomorrow OR (dueBefore:"3 days from now" AND isRepeating:false AND start:never)

Upcoming items that have been scheduled, regardless of whether they are important or not.

“Important”

NOT priority:none

Things I have decided are important.

“Someday/Maybe”

NOT list:Urgent AND NOT list:Important AND isSubtask:false

Not due soon, marked unimportant, and not related to other tasks. This is a traditional “Someday/Maybe” GTD list.

“Smellers”

NOT addedWithin:"3 months of today" AND due:never AND start:never AND priority:none

These tasks have somehow slid down through the months. I haven’t scheduled them or given them any importance. Essentially, when something shows up here it’s a good bet it doesn’t need to be done at all, but in case it does, this list ensures nothing completely falls through the cracks.

“! Do or Schedule” (prepended with ! so it appears at the top of the list)

list:Important AND due:never AND start:never AND (isLocated:false OR locatedWithin:"2 miles")

Important stuff I haven’t scheduled into my upcoming timeframe yet. Do these things if I can, or schedule them into my day/week/month/whatever.

“! Do Now”

(dueBefore:tomorrow OR startBefore:tomorrow OR (list:Urgent AND list:Important)) AND (isLocated:false OR locatedWithin:"2 miles")

This is the bread and butter of everything. This is the list I work off 90% of the time. These are items that I can do and ought to do at the time and place that I am looking at the list.

That’s it! Takes a bit of setting up, but when I add new tasks i really only have to describe what it is (label, location, description, etc) and decide if it is important or not, and if it needs to be scheduled or not. As long as the description is good, the importance/schedule part can come later, often at my weekly retrospective.

Thanks for sharing this tip, stevepaulo! 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.

Eleven years ago today, we launched our little app into the world. We had absolutely no idea what to expect (would anyone use this thing?!), but it’s been a crazy ride for one small monkey and his human helpers ever since.

Thank you to everyone who’s supported us over the past eleven years, plus an extra special thanks to those who’ve upgraded to Pro (Remember The Milk couldn’t exist without you!).

From Bob and the team, thank you all for using Remember The Milk! :)

Sometimes it can be helpful to preview what’s coming up and mentally prepare for the tasks ahead. That’s where the “Tomorrow” view comes in, but what if you want to see what’s coming up on your next workday instead? This week, simon.miner shares a helpful tip to do just that!

I wanted a way to know what tasks are due the next weekday (typically to let me see what I’ll be working on the next time I’m at the office). This is pretty straightforward if tomorrow is a weekday, but it’s a bit trickier for weekend days.

After a little experimentation, I came up with this Smart List:

due:tomorrow AND NOT (due:Saturday OR due:Sunday) OR (dueWithin:"4 days" AND due:Monday)

This shows me tasks that are due tomorrow, unless tomorrow is a Saturday or Sunday, along with tasks that are due on a Monday within the next four days. The last half of the rule handles the cases when tomorrow is on the weekend.

Thanks for sharing this tip, simon.miner! 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.

When scanning your Smart Lists, it can sometimes be difficult to see what you can do if you’re waiting on something or someone to complete a task. This week’s tip, shared by stevenov, suggests tagging those tasks and excluding them, thus making a “no-filler” Action List. You can also then review just those waiting tasks too.

I use a waiting label to indicate things I’m waiting on. This is a wonderfully easy way to get a sense of everything I’m waiting on someone else to deliver. However, if I’m waiting on a bunch of things, it can make my list tough to parse. I’ll have to scan past things that I can’t actually do.

To get around this, I created an action Smart List that excludes anything tagged with waiting. It’s an easy way to see the things I can actually work on. I use it for my work list, so the syntax is

NOT tag:waiting AND list:work

but you can use

NOT tag:waiting

to see everything you’re not waiting on. I think of this as my action list!

Thanks for sharing this tip, stevenov! 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.

Preparing for a vacation or trip can mean a lot of tasks and a lot of thinking and planning. It’s easy to get caught up in all the details and forget some of the things you had thought to do. This week’s tip, shared by radmoose, suggests keeping an “ideas” list where you can put ideas large and small.

I am heading up to Vancouver, BC, Canada in a couple months. Over the past few weeks, I have been thinking of places I want to see or things I want to do, so while it isn’t a typical “task” I created a “Canada Trip” folder to add things as I come across them.

I probably won’t get to all of them however it is now full of ideas (and growing) so that I can open it up when I have some free time up there and see what I want to do, sometimes spur of the moment.

One of the first… Have a Canadian Slurpee at 7-Eleven as they are created differently than here in the States.

For me it is kinda like a “bucket list” for the trip to fill in the gaps and see/do a lot of cool things!

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.

Our latest release updates the app to (properly) support iOS 10. If you update to iOS 10 you need to download this update! :)

Aside from generally supporting iOS 10, here’s what you’ll find in version 4.1.5:

• Fixed: The Today widget now displays in the iOS 10 style and doesn’t have rendering glitches.
  
• Fixed: Tasks are now rendered properly in task lists and don’t have rendering glitches.
  
• Fixed: Tags everywhere are now rendered properly and don’t have rendering glitches.
  
• Fixed: The refresh control (spinning circle) didn’t display on iOS 10 when using pull-to-refresh.
  

Some things that come up from time to time don’t quite warrant a task repeat, but you want to complete the same tasks each time. This week’s tip, shared by echarles, suggests keeping a master copy of those in a list, where you can duplicate all of the tasks as needed.

If your projects have the same basic lists of tasks every time, it can be very useful to have a template list of tasks that you can just add into the list for a new project when you start it.

I’m a fiction writer, so each new project does have the same basic things to do - research, outline, draft, edit, submit etc. Similarly with the tasks I have to do with the publisher after it sells, and the things I have to do around the release of the book. There are tweaks depending on the books or the publisher, but it’s the same basic tasks each time.

It’s a pain to set up those lists over and over. So why not start with a list of all those usual tasks, already nicely tagged, and just waiting to have due dates, repeats, locations or whatever assigned to them later?

It doesn’t seem to be possible to copy a list, so what I’ve done is create a list called Templates, with 3 tasks (Writing tasks, Post Sale Tasks and Release tasks.) In those I’ve added as subtasks all the individual tasks for that stage of the project. When I create a list for a new writing project I go to Templates, make duplicates of each of these three master tasks and move the duplicates into the List for the new project.

I’ll unbundle the subtasks from each of those tasks depending on the stage I’m at - so I’ll straightaway drag all the Writing subtasks into the main list, but keep the Post Sale and Release subtasks under their master task and out of my way until I reach that stage of the project.

So if you have the kinds of projects, where you’ll do the same tasks over and over, templates like that can save you plenty of repetitive work setting up your new project list.

Thanks for sharing this tip, echarles! 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.

If you have a tough list of tasks to get through, or if you just want some extra fun in your day, this week’s tip is for you. Remember The Milk user erin_milk suggests playing with your tasks, using points and/or emojis to make completing your tasks that much more satisfying. :)

You can easily encourage yourself to complete a task just by adding “1 ♢” at the end of the task.

The steps to play with your tasks:

1. Set simple rules. How many points will you get from a task? e.g., 1, 2, or 5.
2. Add points at the end of a task.
3. Add up the points for a day’s work.
4. Compare the points you get today with yesterday; did you win today?

There’s lots of emojis to choose from, e.g., diamonds, apples, hearts, so choose whatever you like.

Thanks for sharing this tip, erin_milk! 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.

Our latest app update is a whole new Remember The Milk for Mac! Okay, you might not see a big difference, but believe us – it’s all new. For version 1.1.0, we’ve switched from the WebKit/WKWebKit framework built into OS X to a shiny new Chrome-based engine provided by Electron.

Why did we do this, you ask? (Or maybe you didn’t ask, in which case… hey! how’s it going?)

Well, here are some reasons:

• Everything’s just much faster. You can now scroll a big list of tasks at 60fps because we can use your GPU to draw things. Due to bugs in WebKit, we had to disable this in the old version. Not anymore!
  
• We can keep things updated and give you the latest and greatest browsing engine. Any time Google releases a new Chrome, we can release a new Remember The Milk with all the new improvements. With the old version, we were stuck on the built-in version until a new Safari release.
  
• Fewer bugs. Yup, Bob’s been battling all sorts of issues in WKWebKit. He had to reinvent printing (not supported!), fast offline storage (not supported by default), zooming, geolocation, etc, etc. The list could go on. All these things come for almost free now. No reinventing the wheel. Woohoo!
  
• Shared code across platforms. We now have a Windows app and a Linux app. They all work the exact same way and give the best experience possible on each platform. Hooray!
  

We hope you enjoy the new, zippier Mac app. :)

Bob’s excited to bring you not one but two new apps today! Remember The Milk for Windows and Remember The Milk for Linux join our Mac app to complete our little desktop apps family.

Both of these new apps bring all the functionality you get in your browser into a handy standalone version. See your tasks with one click of the cow in the system tray (or launcher, if you’re Linux-inclined), or keep a skinny version of the app on your screen at all times.

Plus, to make sure you’ll never forget a task, we’ve brought notifications to the desktop, too. You’ll see these appear from the system tray (Windows 7 and 8), in Action Center (Windows 10), or in our custom notification center (Linux).

Our Windows app is available for Windows 7 or newer, and our Linux app is available for both Ubuntu and Fedora. You’ll find them both available for download on our Apps page.

We hope you enjoy the new apps and having Remember The Milk on your desktop! :)

The latest small but mighty update for our Android app is now available! Here’s what you’ll find in 4.1.3:

• New: Support for Android 7.0 (Nougat).
  
• New: The app now includes multi-window support.
  
• New: Added support for Smart Lock.
  
• Updated: Localizations for all supported languages.
  

Bob hopes you enjoy the update! :)

When postponing a task isn’t quite what you want, what do you do? This week’s tip comes from fizzyice, who “pauses” tasks using the updated date and a tag. You can make the task disappear for a bit in their Smart List, and automatically return.

To pause tasks for a specified number of days, the formula I use in the Smart List for this is:

(tag:x1 AND updatedWithin:"1 day of today") OR (tag:x2 AND updatedWithin:"2 days of today") OR (tag:x3 AND updatedWithin:"3 days of today")

You can use the word ‘now’ instead of 'today’ in the formula. I go up to 7 days in mine.

I have named this Smart List 'pps’, you can name it what you want.

Next, incorporate this into any other Smart List that you wish to pause tasks in by typing the following in its formula:

NOT list:pps

I have added this to my ‘😀T-O-D-A-Y😀’ Smart List. (This is my go-to Smart List everyday and I use emojis so I can spot it easily.)

Using this allows me to add a tag, either 'x1’ or 'x2’ or 'x3’ etc to any tasks in the specified Smart List that I wish to pause.

So if I decided I don’t want to see a task in my ‘😀T-O-D-A-Y😀’ list for the next 3 days then I will add the tag 'x3’ to that particular task. The task then disappears from that list for 3 days, then 3 days later it automatically reappears in that list without me having to do anything to it.

As long as you don’t update these tagged tasks when in use, it should work well. Remove the tags when they are no longer needed, otherwise updating the task later will cause it to hide again from that list.

I use this instead of 'postpone’ when I don’t want to disturb the due date or start date, or if it’s a repeating task etc, but there maybe other uses for it.

Thanks for sharing this tip, fizzyice! 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.