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Ask the Readers: How do you Handle Time-Based Reminders?

By , on Monday, October 8th, 2007

Throughout the many iterations of my personal GTD system (from all-digital to purely analog to a hybrid of the two), the handling reminders has been the one component that’s been the most prone to drastic change and restructuring. There are several ways one might deal with this problem, with each one’s success depending heavily on the habits and lifestyle of the user.

For the all-paper folk, there’s the tickler file (or some variation on that idea). I tried using one of these for awhile, but with only limited success – due, in part, to my laziness in maintaining it. I was also turned off by the somewhat cumbersome nature of it – as I either had to check it religiously each morning or carry it with me. In other words, wanting it to be truly ubiquitous meant lugging around a big ass file-folder thing. Not to mention the fact that the tickler is, in essence, incapable of time-specific reminders.

Then there were the reminders feature in Backpack, which I liked. They offered a good measure of control and flexibility, but I didn’t really like that I was forced to be in front of a computer to set a reminder for something, especially if it was for only a short time in the future (a la, remind me in 30 minutes to take my rhubarb pie out of the oven). But Backpack did earn bonus points for fairly painless recurring reminders. A definite plus was the fact that SMS reminders could be sent.

Which brings me to my current solution, Sandy (whom I’ve mentioned before). So far, she’s been pretty stellar in handling all of my reminder needs. Sadly, she’s not quite ready for prime time yet (though, hopefully soon). Creating reminders (and, more importantly, updating them easily) is a snap. To create a new reminder, I just email her with:

Remind me in 30 minutes to put clothes in the dryer

And 30 minutes later, my cell phone starts going nuts and I remember my clothes. If my clothes are taking a little longer than I thought, I can reply to the reminder she sends with:

Remind me in 10 minutes

to move the reminder back 10 minutes. Think of it as a very simple snooze button.

So, having said all that, how do you folks do it? What’s your preferred method of being reminded about the pizza in the oven or the sales meeting tomorrow afternoon?

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  • http://www.legalandrew.com Andrew Flusche

    I tried Sandy when you first blogged about her, but then I abandoned her. Oddly enough, we’re back together. I’m finding Sandy really useful now that I’m working. It’s a different flow than a typical to-do list, but ti’s working well.

  • Silvia

    I like Todoist to receive reminders.

  • Ian Hunter

    Personally, I have 4 “categories” of things to be reminded of:

    Things that start at a specific time and date (like meetings) I put in Outlook as an appointment with a reminder. I sync with my Phone/PDA and that works fine.

    Things that don’t have a specific time, but they need to get done on a particular day (like “pick up dry cleaning”) I put in Outlook as an all day event, with no reminder. I have trained myself to check my calendar several times a day, so this works for me. I can trust my calendar because I don’t put anything on it that doesn’t really have to happen that day… except…

    Things that recur over time (like “change batteries in smoke detectors”) I put in Outlook as repeating all day events with no reminder; if I don’t get them done the exact day they pop up on my calendar, I move them(that day) to a “next action” list.

    Things like “pizza in oven” I just set a timer for (on the stove, etc).

    That’s a pretty tight, by-the-book GTD implementation, but it works for me.

  • http://storyfanatic.com Jim

    Seems like I’ve been waiting forever to try Sandy out – I must’ve signed up months ago. Have they let beta testers know anything about when it might be ready?

    personally I rarely use any time based reminders because nothing really works for me now. I’m kind of hoping this Sandy will help get my s*** together.

  • mbs

    For reminders within the next two-three hours I set the timer in my mobile phone.
    Normally, I have only at a time.

    Stuff I need to do later in the day I write on a piece of paper and put that into my shirt pocket.

    For real world reminders at home I got myself one of those big restaurant chalk boards at home.
    Writing with chalk is fun and the stuff you write in big letters is difficult to forget. BTW,
    getting a chalk board it quite easy. Just drive over to your local brewery or Coca-Cola distributer
    an ask for one. Allthough I offered to pay for it, I even got it for free because they normally give
    them out to restaurants for free and didn’t have a price…

    For longer period reminders online Sandy seems to be a cool idea. I got invited last week and
    will give her a chance.

    My biggest problem with Sandy is that she only knows two email addresses for reminding. If you keep your work and business email apart this is a bit of a problem. Sandy really needs to learn to optionally remind me on more than those addresses. I’m also not completely happy with the display on the dates on the iwantsandy.com site. But it’s beta, so it can only get better.

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