Tips & Tricks Tuesday: Using the mobile apps to record ideas immediately

When an idea comes to mind, or you remember something you have to do, the moment can be fleeting – and don’t those moments always arise at the most inopportune times? This week’s tip, shared by jacktuttle, suggests adding a task to your Inbox so you can get it out of your head without forgetting it when you need it. :)

I’ve been making lists for as long as I can remember but, since discovering RTM a few years ago, I have used it virtually every day and my productivity has increased a great deal as a result. I use RTM in lots of different ways and have found the forums helpful in coming up with different Smart Lists. The beauty with it, I find, is that it has become more and more useful the more I use it. However, the greatest use I get from it is by following a relatively simple technique.

I’ve read numerous times that the greatest thinkers in history often carried notebooks around with them so they could record ideas whenever anything entered their mind. This is a theme repeated by many of the top productivity bloggers who I follow. However, carrying a notebook with me when I am out and about often isn’t practical, but carrying my iPhone is normal and tapping an idea, however brief, into the RTM iPhone app and creating a new task is easy. It doesn’t necessarily have to be particularly coherent; all that matters is I record the idea, whether that is for a new business, a book, an article, an exercise, or whatever.

The new task then automatically appears in my Inbox. Later, when I get to my computer (or using the app if I am, for example, commuting by train), I can go through my Inbox and deal with these idea tasks accordingly. This can involve completing them, tagging and adding them to another list, or adding new next-step tasks. Sometimes I don’t get around to dealing with the task for a while, but the important thing is I recorded something which I almost certainly would have forgotten otherwise.

Thanks for sharing this tip, jacktuttle! 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.