Sandy v. Remember the Milk: The Web-Based Reminder Cage Match

reminder-708092.jpgWithin this little GTD cult of ours, there are an alarming number of battles fought over the best tool, notebook, web application, etc. In my mind, it’s a little silly - just use what works, right?

Well, sometimes there will be two “competing” services/devices/things that both offer a compelling solution to a common problem. Today, that problem is reminders and the two services I’ll be covering are Remember the Milk (hereafter referred to as ‘RTM’) and Sandy.

Now, before everybody starts frothing at the mouth about how the service they use is better than both of those, let me reiterate - I don’t really care what you use. If a stack of cocktail napkins, a set of soap crayons and a shoebox get the job done for you, then that’s great. My point here is not to decide on the all-time greatest way to remind yourself to take the pizza out of the oven or pick up your kilt from the dry cleaners. I’m simply going to compare the capabilities of these two services and tell you which one I like best. Mmkay? Mmkay.

[For those of you that are horribly impatient and just want to know how the story ends, I like Sandy better. Read on if you're interested in why that is.]

First, a list of things that both services do reasonably well, since there’s actually a fair bit of overlap between the two as far as reminders:

  • Tags - both apps allow you to tag everything for sorting/searching later. Since tagging is pretty much a “you do it or you don’t” kind of feature, this one is a tie.
  • Date/Time Parsing - both services know what to do when I tell them “Call Jimmy tomorrow at 3pm” or “Call Jenny in 2 months”. Both offer some flexibility in this area - when you tell Sandy things like “Foo in 20 minutes”, you’ll get ‘Foo’ in 20 minutes, and no reminder 15 minutes beforehand (like you would with “Call Bobby tomorrow at 3pm”). RTM will send reminders at both times (n minutes before and right “on time”), and it’s configurable.
  • Reminder Delivery Media - Both services are capable of sending reminders via SMS, Email, Twitter and various instant messaging platforms. I really only use the first 3, but there’s hardly ever a time when I don’t get a reminder using one of those.

Now, here are the things Sandy does that make it the better choice:

  • You can override the default reminder settings in the body of the message you send her. In other words, if my Sandy settings indicate that I want to be reminded by email only, I can say “Remind me to put air in the left rear tire tomorrow at 9am @sms” and I’ll get the reminder via email and an SMS message. To me, this is an excellent feature because I’m not always in the same place (or near the same devices) when I want my reminders, so I have that much more control.
  • The Daily Digest - If I don’t give Sandy a specific time for a reminder (only a date), that’s alright, she’ll still get me the message. Every morning at 9am (configurable), I get an email outlining the day’s events and the times at which I’ll be reminded of them. This is a truly sweet way to take a quick look at what’s on tap for the day and move things around if need be.
  • Dead-simple snoozing - By far my favorite (and most utilized) of Sandy’s features is the “snoozing”. For instance, if I get a reminder tomorrow at 9am to walk the dog, but I’m right in the middle of The Price is Right - I’m clearly much too busy to be bothered to walk the dog, so I’d like to be reminded of that in an hour. Simply reply to the reminder email with “remind me in 1 hour”. It’s that simple. And I’m really not exaggerating when I say that I use this a ton (probably 60% of the reminders I get from Sandy get quickly rescheduled using this feature).

Finally, there’s one deal-breaker for me when it comes to using RTM for simple reminders - they inextricably mix in with my action lists. I hate seeing things in my @Home list with dates attached to them because a) it always bubbles those to the top of the list and b) I don’t want to be constantly reminded of my upcoming reminder. The whole idea behind these “tickler-ish” reminders is that they are out of sight until I want them to be. Another benefit of Sandy’s style of interaction is that I can fire things off to her and trust that they’ll find their way back to me when I asked them to. I can, as we like to say in the techie world, “set it and forget it”.

Please don’t take this as some sort of a general indictment of RTM as a service - I use it every day and absolutely love it (a more detailed explanation of how is forthcoming). And there are things that RTM does extremely well that Sandy doesn’t handle as well (because she wasn’t really designed to, frankly).

So, in conclusion, while both services are capable of sending me a text message when it’s time to take my pies out of the oven, Sandy is *designed* to do that (among other things, obviously).

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February 21, 2008 | Filed Under Digital GTD, GTD, Practical, Productivity, Technology 

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12 Responses to “Sandy v. Remember the Milk: The Web-Based Reminder Cage Match”

  1. Jamie Phelps on February 21st, 2008

    Brett, this is a really good write-up. The out of sight out of mind factor is why I adore Sandy for my tickler items. I need to get better about using the snooze feature. I tend to go, “Oh, yah, that’s my Tuesday evening text to remind me to put out the trash. I’ll do that in a bit” and then when I get up Wednesday morning I have to jump through my ass to put it out before 7:00 A.M. Working on that though.

    I also agree that Sandy is not well suited for projects and next actions. I’m currently trying to get that going with Backpack, but I’m open to other options as well. I may have to give RTM another look.

  2. Aaron B. Hockley on February 21st, 2008

    I’ve used both services and ended up settling on RTM based on the awesome GMail/Firefox sidebar and some issues I had trying to deal with Sandy’s website when “she” was still in limited beta.

    That said, everyone should do whatever works best for them. I will point out however that RTM has a daily digest feature just like Sandy. To set it up, in RTM go to Settings, then Reminders, then enter a time in the “Send daily reminders at” box.

  3. Glen on February 21st, 2008

    Great review Brett! As RTM junkie meself, it was very eye opening to see the shortcomings that RTM has, and how Sandy plugs those holes. I may give her another shot…

  4. Mrs S on February 21st, 2008

    Interesting review - I’ve tried both… and in the end have gone back to good old paper!

  5. Andy C on February 22nd, 2008

    Worked with them, found them to still create irritation on enough lines that I just can’t hang. If you are being reminded to do something when you are not locationaly or timely able, then it’s a distraction, and we tune out distractions faster than anything.

    At least the apps are improving and looking better and better. Diversity creates new thought so huzzah for that. ;-)
    Paper, notecards, and some unreleased prototypes keep me flowing.

    -a

  6. Sam on February 26th, 2008

    Using both seems like an interesting idea.

    I’ve just spent a little over a month with Sandy. There were good times, bad times. I was hopeful, I even told my wife about her. However, in the end I don’t think I can really commit to her, she seems a bit “simple” for me. I mean, shes great at the email replies, but what else is there? Her web interface is nifty but really basic, and there is no IM support other than through a Twitter hack. Even her sister Stikkies has figured out how to use Imified.

    I’m back to the cow, who does it for me with its gmail reminder list (oh heaven sent!), gnome deskbar applet (sweet!) and more explicit protocol - I trust the cow to get things right. IMHO the dealbreaker was the fantastic number of ways that RTM is available, reminding me to remember things.

    Also, the Sandy Satisfaction feed has been asking for Imified support for several months (dozens of requests). While RTM is rolling out new features galore, Sandy doesn’t seem to be. After seeing the rather sudden death of Stikkies, a service with great potential, I wonder whats going to happen to Sandy.

    But its an work in progress. Thanks for the excellent post.

  7. Ran Barton on February 28th, 2008

    Thank you for this writeup. Two quick comments…

    1) RTM can parse date and time when you use it via its Gmail sidebar, but it cannot do so when one accesses it from its website. We keep hoping the NLP from the Gmail module will be grafted back onto the mothership.

    2) If you don’t like seeing reminders in your lists, then tag them as such and filter them out in the smartlists. RTM’s smartlists and tagging make it incredibly powerful, IMO.

    Anyway, it’s the competition among these services that benefits all of us, and thank you for the comparison.

  8. Warren Whitlock on March 4th, 2008

    I’ve tried Sandy and a bunch of other services, systems, binders, notepads, strings, etc.

    I’ll agree Sandy is the best.. but I just wish she’d know what I”m thinking

  9. Robert Markowitz on March 7th, 2008

    I’ve tried both and found reQall better than both. ReQall is as unobtrusive as Sandy (sends email etc.), but is also voice integrated in both directions (you can call in a command like using Jott with Sandy, and you can also retrieve reminders via voice on the phone). No bothering with text messaging at all.

  10. DanGTD on April 6th, 2008

    Have you tried http://www.gtdagenda.com ?

    I think it has all the important tools for productivity: goals, projects and tasks, contexts, next actions, checklists, schedules and calendar.

  11. Amanda on April 30th, 2008

    I tried using RTM after using Sandy and it was just too confusing for me. Sandy is simple like a real assistant. Tell her what to remember and she’ll let you know when you need to remember it. Jott has a plugin for her and that’s really all I need.

  12. Amanda on April 30th, 2008

    @ DanGTD - that website needs a serious design makeover if you want people to sign up. Just looking at the index page and the “learn more” with the target=”_blank” screenshots made me want to throw up a little, never mind actually use it. :)

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