Stuff the monkey says

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Reading is satisfying, but when you get to the end of a book… then what?! If you ever find yourself reaching for an idea of what to read, this week’s tip will help!

bedoubleca shares a great way to use a list of tasks to keep track of books you want to read, finding them at the library or store, and then (of course!) making sure you return library books on time.

I’m a voracious reader and prior to RTM, I’d just keep a running list of titles and authors in my notebook. Now I use Remember The Milk to categorize the following:

I put the books in the list: c_books (list of books I’ve yet to read–I also have c_movies and c_music)

I prioritize the books from most interesting to “I’ll get around to it” (with the RTM 1, 2, 3).

When I have down time, I go through the list and compare it to the library’s selection… if the library does have them, I tag them with their library call number and attach the library branch location. Thus if I’m in that area of town, I can swing by and pick it up. Or when I request a book by phone or online, I can can look up all of the books that are available at that branch and have them sent to my home branch in a batch.

After I’ve picked up the book, I set the “due” date for the date the book(s) is due, avoiding those $0.35/day fees.

If the library doesn’t have the book, I put in a request for them to get it or if there’s a wait, I’ll tag the book “requested” and put the approximate date I can expect to get my hands on the book.

If the library wait list is too long or if it’s clear the book will not be available, I’ll research the price of the book at a few retailers and also add the book to my “wish list” (if the priority is high enough) so that way the next time I have a bookstore giftcard, I know what I’m looking for and the priority of the book. Keeping the list of books is also helpful when I find myself in thrift shops, used book stores and book sales so I’m looking for something I really want and not just browsing aimlessly.

Thanks for sharing this tip, bedoubleca! 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.

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Social relationships, particularly at work, require a level of care and detail that may not always come naturally.

This week countdiso shares their tip on keeping track of others’ life details so that you can keep up with birthdays, anniversaries, and everything else you want!

So I’m not a very chatty person, and having a little small talk chat with someone is very tiring for me. I don’t remember details about someone else’s life, so I’ll often seem rude and uninterested.

This became a bit of a problem when I was in charge of 100 people, not just a problem for me, but for anyone to remember the name of 100 employees and their partners and children’s names is going to be tricky.

RTM to the rescue!

We all know we can use RTM for birthday reminders, but I needed to use it for more than that, it had to make me look good.

So, firstly I did some basics, all employee birthdays into RTM. If an employee got married then that went into RTM too as a repeating reminder, suddenly I’m the boss who remembers people’s wedding anniversaries better than they do.

If anyone mentioned it was their child’s birthday, again straight into RTM as a repeating task, with notes of the child’s name, and what they had planned.

“Hey, isn’t it little Steve’s birthday this weekend, what is he now 7, you gonna take him to Diggerland like last year?”

Suddenly I’m the boss who really cares about his employees.

Deaths in the family logged. This might seem cynical, but the loss of a close family member won’t just impact someone at the time. Knowing that it was the anniversary of a parent’s death made a difference, “Debbie is in a right mood today, something needs to be done about her, she can’t talk to me like that”, “Yeah, sorry about that but it is a year today since she lost her mother, she is probably upset”, “Oh God, I didn’t know, I’ll make her a coffee and get some biscuits”

I logged everything, employee moving house, RTM that heck out of that, in a year’s time, how is the new house coming along, must be a year since you’ve moved, everything unpacked now.

Whilst people always respected me for my decision making and work ethic, I was a manager that was viewed as grumpy and unapproachable. By making all these reminders to prompt small talk and help me remember significant (and even insignificant) events in my employee’s lives, I became a manager who was viewed as caring, understanding and very approachable.

Thanks for sharing this tip, countdiso! 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.

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Using your phone hands-free or with Siri is great to pull up a list of tasks when you’re on the go. …But not all of your tasks, right? Which ones then?

This week’s tip comes from rusharound, who has a great idea: make a Smart List that automatically shows just the tasks you can work on in transit.*

*as a passenger, of course! 😇

When I am in my car (ahem, as a passenger, of course), I like to have a list of things to do when I am in my car (ahem, as a passenger, of course). Instead of muddling through my complete list, I have a Smart List called “windshield” which includes all tasks that are due or overdue that include “did” “call” “go” “Pick up” “visit” or “Hear” (as in Did I hear from Bob?). It also includes items tagged with windshield or errands. Items with these words in them are easily done while in the car.

Even better, on iPhone I made a shortcut to that specific search and added it to my home page. Now it’s only one click to my windshield list.

For those interested, here’s what the search looks like:

(tag:windshield or tag:errands or name:call or name:check or name:go or name:heard or name:did or name:visit or name:call or name:did) and dueBefore:now and list:InboxEdit

Thanks for sharing this tip, rusharound! 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.

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It’s hard enough to keep up with home projects, but all those other maintenance tasks are waiting too!

This week’s tip from pjean suggests using repeating tasks and notes to keep track of those as well, so everything keeps working long into the future!

It’s always easy to forget regular home maintenance items (change air filters, test smoke detectors). As I find regular items, I enter them into RTM with a due date and recurrence to make sure they aren’t forgotten. I put the detailed instructions in the notes for more complicated tasks or where I might need details on parts to pick up when I’m at the store.

I’ve done the same for oil changes for the car and hope to build more maintenance items into that list in the future.

Thanks for sharing this tip, pjean! 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.

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Cooking is a multifaceted job that requires equal parts planning, organization, and work. (Simmer for one week, season as needed.)

This week’s thorough tip comes from brumley, who walks us through their whole process from planning and shopping to cooking and ongoing organization.

I love to cook and RTM has helped me a great deal. I have three lists I use (dinner, grocery, pantry).

The Dinner List

Like erlang, I also have a “dinner” list. I put all the dishes I have made before or would like to make. Each dish is tagged with #cuisine and #course but no due date.

Because I have hundreds of tags, all my food-related tags are prefixed with an underscore _ so they are separated from my work tags.

Cuisine is prefixed with +
+italian
+mexican
+asian

Course is prefixed with -
-appetizer
-side
-main
-dessert

Later, the dish is used to tag ingredients in my grocery list:
_tortilla soup
_paella
_tuscan chicken

I use the url to add a link to any YouTube clip related to preparation, or if not available, to a webpage.

I add several notes:
1. Ingredients
2. Preparation
3. Pairings (wine, side dishes, etc)
4. Leftover Ideas (grilled chicken –> chicken Caesar salad –> buffalo chicken wraps –> chicken and pesto pizza –> fajitas)
5. Search tags to recall grocery list i.e., tag:_paella AND status:completed

When I am ready to plan, I search by cuisine and give the courses a due date I plan to make the dish. When done, I remove the due date.

The Grocery List

I have the items I usually buy at my local store in an Excel spreadsheet list. In Excel, I select the items I want to buy, filter the list, and email the list to RTM.

My spreadsheet is set up like this:

Column 1 - Store section
Column 2 - Frequency (so I can filter list to hide infrequent items)
Column 3-5 - Sorting categories (Produce-Fruit-Citrus, Produce-Vegetable-Root)
Column 6 - The name I want to see in my list i.e., Orange or Potato
Column 7 - Descriptive info i.e., Navel or Yukon Gold
Column 8 - Qty
Column 9 - a formula to convert the store section into an hour (necessary to reset the item count in column 10 when section changes)
Column 10 - a formula to convert the item in the section into a minute (increments until section changes then starts back at 1)

I have my list sorted by due date. The due date is Today Section:Item. I know I could have put them as a prefix, but I like the cleanness of this method.

Column 11 - a formula to build the Smart Add line. It concates Column 6, Column 7 and adds due date in the form of ^Today at section;item. The formula looks at the header in column 8 and if it is more than three characters, it assumes this is an ingredient list for a particular dish and adds the dish tag i.e., _tortillasoup to the line.

When completed, I select the drop down button on the autofiltered list in the Qty column and select non-blanks. I then select the items in column 10, copy and paste into an email to send to my RTM Grocery List.

A completed line might look like this:

Potatoes, Yukon Gold #_potatoeslyonaise ^Today at 01:01
Onions, Sweet #_potatoeslyonaise ^Today at 01:02
Butter, unsalted #_potatoeslyonaise ^Today at 15:01

Once in RTM, I can always go to my note for the dish in my dinner list and copy and paste the search string to pull up the shopping list then select and uncomplete.

For things I normally keep stocked in my pantry and fridge, I selected the items in my Excel list and emailed to another list tagged with and called Pantry. Periodically, I will inventory the pantry. When things get low, I change the priority to 3, then 2, then 1. I check this list at the grocery store to see if I need to replenish.

Thanks for sharing this tip, brumley! 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.

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It’s that time of year again—time for that renewal you lost track of. It’s easy to do! But with things like ID and passports, timing can really matter.

This week’s tip from alan.porter will help you prevent that: with the right repeats, you’ll stay updated on your renewals of all types.

I created a list called “renewal” where I record the dates when I need to renew things: my driver’s license, passport, annual subscriptions to newspapers, and even my RTM subscription.

Since these things happen yearly or less often, it’s pretty easy to forget about them. But RTM will remind me when they’re coming up.

It looks a little funny to see a list where the items have due dates 2 or 3 years from now. But it’s comforting to have all of those dates in one place, so I know I won’t forget and let one lapse.

Thanks for sharing this tip, alan.porter! 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.

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For some autistic people, challenges with executive function can make day-to-day routines difficult or draining.

Having an organized to-do list is a big advantage, but still requires careful planning. This week, in honor of World Autism Awareness/Acceptance Day, gm1 shares their insights in creating lists specifically for routines and other especially challenging times of day.

On discovering the RTM Smart Watch app, which amazingly, is “independent” - so notifications still works if the phone battery goes flat - RTM is now a very important tool with which to manage my disability.

I have a favourited project called “Transitions”, and in there a weekly repeating task for every day of the week. A series of subtasks breaks the day down into the various stages of my day, with a timed device reminder for each step. Wake up, morning exercises, breakfast, walk the dog, work task 1,2, lunch, work task 3, 4, supper, and my evening routines. A notification sound , and vibration on my wrist prompts me to move to the next task/routine.

One of my last tasks each evening is quickly check my routine for the next day, and make sure all reminders for that day are set correctly and and any appointments or scheduled calls also are set.

This technique stops me getting distracted and helps me focus on the next task at hand. I also always use plenty of emoji in the task/ routine name so when it pops up on my Smart Watch it is a quick visual cue as well.

To cope with anxiety when out and about, I make full use of the Evernote integration. I have scans of bus passes, bus time tables, maps, important phone numbers, anything that I can use to help prompt or I might need. I use key words in Evernote note titles - such as “Appointment” or “Meeting” or “Travel” then saved searches in RTM for example source:evernote AND name:appointment though sometimes I also put pertinent points in the notes, which can then be viewed on the Smart Watch task details.

I have also shared a project with my social worker, so they can remind me to do things or if I need them to help me with something they can see - also helps keep all information in one place.

Finally, one thing I find very difficult is decision making, I find it overwhelming. So for example I keep a list of books I want to read on my Kindle, films to watch on Netflix , recipes I want to try and another saved search called “DownTime” list:books OR list:films OR list:recipes AND priority:1 - from my Apple Watch, I can scroll a select choice and make an easy decision.

Thanks for sharing this tip, gm1! 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.

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It’s great when a task helps you do what needs to be done when it is time, but what about the task that needs a lot of context or has a lot of details?

You can add a note right alongside adding a task too, as nodonovan describes in this week’s tip. Which reminds us of something we need to do for Bob since he’s so deep in thought:

Buy bananas for Bob today //Yellow ones are ripe.

Very often, I want to add a note to a task that I’ve just created. In the past, I used to create the task then search for the same task to add the note. Very time consuming.

There is a shortcut that I don’t think is very obvious in the help topics for RTM. I’ve certainly never found it. All you need to do is add two slashes (that is, //) after you’ve written the task, but before you press ‘Done’. This tells RTM to add a note, dated today, to the task.

This saves a lot of keystrokes. Invaluable.

Thanks for sharing this tip, nodonovan! 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.

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Keyboard shortcuts in the web/desktop app are very helpful to perform actions quickly and to navigate around your tasks, lists, etc.

This week, vpanzano shares a tip that takes things to the next level: naming your lists and views thoughtfully to make jumping around even easier!

Just a little tip that makes for a super-fast RTM experience:

I name my most frequently used lists using symbols on the keyboard number pad (e.g. *, /, -, +, .). If you do this, it’s super easy to jump from list to list with just a few keystrokes.

For example, my main list is * and so the RTM keyboard shortcut pattern of g then m then * on the number pad will take me right to my key list. By using the number pad, you don’t need to hit shift or any other key to get right to your list.

I hope that helps someone!

Thanks for sharing this tip, vpanzano! 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.

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GTD posts have been a popular niche for our Tips & Tricks Tuesday posts. They end up being very interesting because they demonstrate different ways to organize your tasks based on GTD principles.

This week’s tip is no different! Here’s a very thorough GTD setup driven primarily by start dates and Smart Lists, with a thorough explanation for how to use it. Thanks for sharing!

Hello, I’ve been a Pro User now for about a year and wanted to share with everyone how I’ve set up my GTD methodology within RTM.

A couple of things to note about my approach to GTD… I am a user of Start Dates, and having a Start Date field is one of the main reasons I’m a RTM user as most other apps out there only have Due Date. For me, there are a lot of things that I have to do, but I can’t start them until a specific date in the future. Hence, I use the Start Date field to capture the date I want to “start” working on them. Until that date, I don’t want to see the action on my Next Actions list. So as you will see below with my set up, Start Date (or Start After Today) is a key query item for my set up.

Second note, I use a “Focus” Smart List. This Smart List is the list that I work from 95% of my day. The Focus Smart List is a hack that I set up within RTM using the Priority Field. RTM uses 4 levels of Priority (none, 3, 2, and 1 with 1 being the highest priority). So my hack is that Priority Level 1 are those things that I chose to work on today. I then use Priority Level 2 to denote any “important” tasks that I need to keep my eye on, but other than that I don’t use the Priority feature.

Continue reading this tip on the forum, and learn the lists, tags, Smart Lists, and process flow used for this GTD set up!

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.