Circle us on Google+
Friday, December 23, 2011 by Emily Boyd
Remember The Milk is now on Google+ (w00t!). We'll be sharing all the latest Remember The Milk news, tips & tricks, and more. (And yes, for those wondering, Bob T. Monkey may make an occasional appearance, too…)
Sound good? Circle us on Google+ to keep in touch with the Remember The Milk team. :)
Posted in: New Features & Updates
Android app update: Now Ice Cream Sandwich ready
Friday, December 23, 2011 by Emily Boyd
Before Bob T. Monkey heads off for the holidays, we wanted to bring you version 2.0.7 of Remember The Milk for Android. This update includes a bunch of small enhancements and bug fixes, detailed below.
Enhancements:
- Update widgets for Ice Cream Sandwich (we prepared the app for ICS with our 2.0.0 release, but this final tweak means we're ready to call the app "ICS ready" :).
- Updates to localizations for Chinese (Simplified), Danish, Portuguese (Portugal) and Spanish.
Bug fixes:
- Fix issue with widgets not opening to the correct task list in some instances.
- Fix issue with tag display on the Samsung Galaxy S II.
- Fix issue with display of repeat interval "every [interval] [day name]".
Don't have the app yet? Learn more about Remember The Milk for Android.
Update: We've just released another Android bug fix update (2.0.8), as some users experienced an issue with widgets and/or shortcuts being removed from the homescreen when updating to 2.0.7 — sorry to those affected by this issue! :(
Posted in: New Features & Updates
Tips & Tricks Tuesday: Short-term crisis management
Tuesday, December 20, 2011 by Andrew Conkling
When something unexpected happens, it can be hard to pick up and move forward. Or, at least, there may be a lot to pick up. This week's tip, shared by evanblackerby, discusses how he used Remember The Milk to navigate a tough situation he had never dealt with before.
We recently had a 4 ft diameter oak tree hit our home during a severe storm. My wife, son, and I were missed by the tree. We were all safe, but shaken. Three rooms on the house were destroyed by the tree and rain. We have had to deal with a tree service, insurance company, banks, and various contractors. Countless people. This is a lot to remember and keep straight. As crazy as it has been to be displaced for a few months, Remember The Milk has helped me keep it all generally straight. There is a lot that goes into rebuilding one-third of my home.
The way it works for me:
- I immediately created a category called "The Tree" :-)
- Everything under that category has a person connected to it. "Paul" my contractor. Electrician. Tree guys. My own personal duties (Evan).
- I save each thought or question I have directed at a person. These come at random times.
- Then I create Smart Lists based on each of the people involved in the process. This does the magic in our situation.
In the demolition/construction/renovation business the workers/bosses show up at random times. It is difficult to collect my thoughts on all things that I need to discuss with each of them. "Where to put these lights" or "why does that look crooked" or "is this supposed to be more sturdy than this?"
With the searches, my contractor can just show up and I run the search for "Paul" and all the questions for Paul show up. Same with insurance and bank people.
This tool has been invaluable through these uncharted waters these past 3 months. Thank you guys for helping us through this crisis.
Thanks for sharing your story, Evan. 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: Spend less time categorizing your tasks with keyword-based Smart Lists
Tuesday, December 13, 2011 by Andrew Conkling
It can be easy to over-organize your tasks in an effort to stay as organized as possible. If this is your tendency, you may appreciate this week's tip, shared by dougbrown77, which offers a refreshingly simple way to keep organized lists of tasks.
I found some time ago that I am prone to spend too much time categorizing tasks so that I may at some future point focus on those items. Remember The Milk's Smart Lists have helped me spend less time on categorizing which gives more time to actually do the things I need to do.
I use key words such as buy, call, visit, follow up, write etc. as basic categories. I have set up Smart Lists that search my tasks for these words and then display tasks with that word. For example, the Smart List buy will show me all the tasks with the word "buy". This allows me to concentrate on things that I need to buy.
Now the fun part, whether I am using Siri or Smart Add I can just input the words "buy tomatoes" and that item will show itself in the buy list.
Of course, I can add more categories and tags but I find that for most items this is enough information.
Thanks for sharing this tip, dougbrown77! 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
Give the gift of organization, and we'll give a gift to you!
Friday, December 9, 2011 by Emily Boyd
It's that time of year again! Looking for the perfect gift for the productivity obsessed? Or maybe you know someone (or hey, several someones) who could use a helpful 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, 2011, you'll receive 3 months of Pro for yourself. As an example, if you bought 4 gifts, you'd get a year 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 handy gift card we provide). All the recipient needs to do is enter their code at a special page, and the Pro account is theirs!
The full details of this offer are available at our Holiday Special page. Happy holidays, everyone!
Posted in: Special Offers
Tips & Tricks Tuesday: Keeping track of past and future gifts
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 by Andrew Conkling
As we're approaching the holidays, you may be starting to organize your gift lists for others. This week's tip, shared by miquelmartin, suggests a few ways to keep track of gifts you bought last year, to help organize your gifts this year, and to save a few ideas for next year too!
I sometimes have a hard time remembering what I've given someone as a present. On occasion, I may come up with nice ideas for future presents, and finally I can often use being reminded that the deadline's coming!
For all this, I keep a Presents list with yearly repeating items for each occasion and person (e.g. Brother's birthday). They are due 20 days before the occasion, and I use the notes field to add what I have given in the past, or ideas on what I might give in the future. I mark them as completed as soon as the buying is taken care of.
Thanks for sharing this tip, miquelmartin! 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: Multitasking while watching TV
Tuesday, November 29, 2011 by Andrew Conkling
Often in the evenings, you may want to relax in front of the TV or get some small things done. This week's tip, shared by scave31, offers a way to have your cake and eat it too: get some things done while still enjoying some downtime.
I'm new to Remember The Milk, but within days saw how I could really use it to my advantage.
One of the first tags I created was #evening, which I use to tag tasks that include anything from cleaning a closet or going through magazines to sorting tax receipts – things that can't be done at work or I don't want to do on weekends when I can do bigger projects.
(Most items under the #evening tag don't have due dates, unless I see a need to do the task soon, at which time I'll add one.)
I quickly saw where I could add to this: I watch TV a couple evenings a week and need to be doing something else simultaneously, but often find myself surfing the 'net and then realizing later that stack of magazines is still sitting in the corner.
So, I created tags called #tv and #notv to add to my #evening tasks based on whether I can do them in front of the television without missing the show (like sewing on a button or sorting tax receipts) or whether I need to do them in a different room or they would require enough concentration that I'd miss the show (like cleaning my home office desk or reading RSS feeds with heavy articles).
I also set up a repeat "after" recurrence for things I don't want to do too often, such as cleaning out my e-mail inbox, to keep me from choosing the same tasks over and over again.
With a Smart List (or two), I created badges on my Android phone for items tagged #evening AND #tv or #evening and #notv, called the lists ETV and ENOTV, respectively, and can quickly access what tasks I can get done depending on what my evening television plans are.
I've achieved so much in just a week!
Thanks for sharing this tip, scave31! 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: My Tickler Setup
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 by Andrew Conkling
If you're using Remember The Milk to set up a GTD system, you'll know that it is important to keep track of upcoming tasks due on a particular date. Traditionally, you would keep these items in a set of folders—a "tickler" file. This week's tip, shared by tclaiborne, demonstrates a way to keep these organized right in your Remember The Milk tasks.
I had been looking for a good solution for Tickler style tasks (a la the 43 folders from GTD), and I've finally got one that has stuck in my system.
It involves two lists: a regular list called Tickled, and a Smart List called Tickler.
Tickled is just a regular list. For Tickler, I create a Smart List using the following search:
list:Tickled AND (dueWithin:"1 day of today" OR dueBefore:today)
When I have something that I want to be reminded of on a certain day, I put the task in the Tickled list with a due date of when I want to be reminded.
I can check the Tickler list in the morning each day to see if there's anything for to check on. The way I prefer to do this though is to use the "A Bit Better RTM" extension for Chrome, which shows the count of tasks next to each list. This way I don't even need to open the list, I can just glance.
Thanks for sharing this tip, tclaiborne! 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
Android app bug squishing update, the sequel
Tuesday, November 15, 2011 by Emily Boyd
Bob T. Monkey brings us another bug squishing release, following our big Remember The Milk for Android update. Version 2.0.5 includes:
Enhancements:
- Improve updates to lists/widgets using locatedWithin search criteria.
Bug fixes:
- Fix display of "every last [DAY] of the month" repeat intervals.
- Fix issue with parsing due dates on days with timezone transition.
- Fix issue with repeat intervals passed via the Android Share menu.
- Fix issue with Reminders Bar task entries not being removed if the related task was completed from the Reminders screen.
Versions 2.0.3 and 2.0.4 were also bug squishing updates that we skipped on the blog, but head over to the release notes if you'd like to check whether a bug that you spotted has been fixed. (Not fixed? Be sure to let us know about it so we can get that thing squished!)
Don't have the app yet? Learn more about Remember The Milk for Android.
Posted in: New Features & Updates
Tips & Tricks Tuesday: Using Remember The Milk for GTD in a School Environment
Tuesday, November 15, 2011 by Andrew Conkling
Students know that organizing your assignments across classes can be a tedious affair, even with a syllabus in hand. This week's tip, shared by astavrow, aims for a streamlined, organized setup to keep all assignments straight to make the most of your semester.
There’s a great post on the RTM blog on how to set up the service for advanced GTD. You should read it first, to have a basis for what my basic system looks like.
Anything that I consider a Project (i.e., a desired outcome that requires more than one action to complete) gets its own list. Each class I’m taking is, in a way, a Project. The desired outcome is, obviously, completing the course with high marks; the actions listed are how I make it happen.
The thing is, every class has its own series of Projects to complete — readings, lab reports, assignments, etc. I could make each of these a new list, but they’re pretty short-term projects (a week or less).
So, instead, I created tags that track these “sub-Projects” — things like 'lab', 'readings', 'assignment' – and tag individual tasks within my class list with them.
In a given class, for example, I might have two current “sub-Projects” — a lab and some readings. Those that are also tagged 'na' are Next Actions required to complete the sub-Project.
Why does this work? Adding a list for every bit of assigned work that comes in over the course of a semester, filling in your tasks, and then deleting the list when you’re done involves too much maintenance. A good GTD system gives you enough to work with, but not so much that you’re constantly tweaking the ‘fiddly bits,’ as I like to call them. It’s much easier to simple re-use a few common tags, especially since they will almost never overlap for a given class — it’s unlikely that you’ll have to deal with two assignments or two presentations at the same time for a single class.
Thanks for sharing this tip, astavrow! 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
