Systems allow stress-free productivity without wasting mental RAM. (Photo: Fotopakismo)
The human brain is a wonderful thing, but it’s a bit faulty as a tool for remembering things. Luckily for us (and for our frazzled brains), technology has stepped in to help out.
With the proper habits and the right tools, you and your brain won’t have to remember a thing again.
There are a host of tech tools that can help with taking notes, managing projects and to-dos, and manage your email and calendar needs just fine. Though I’ll include the best choices below, these tools are just one piece of the puzzle. There are more elegant methods (ever scheduled something in Google Calendar via voicemail?)…
To really never have to remember a thing again, you have to combine a few tools in smart and comprehensive fashion, and even more important, you have to develop specific habits that will ensure that things don’t slip between the cracks … because the cracks just get bigger and bigger with more time and more data.
In this post I’ll look at some of the requirements of a “Never Forget Again” system, along with 4 key habits for using that system. I’ll include my setup, as well as some other tools you can use to develop your own setup.
A Comprehensive System
What are all the things you need to remember? There are many types of data, from phone numbers and emails to tasks and projects, from follow-ups to status reports, from errands and appointments to websites and photos, and from random ideas to notes for class or about a book, etc..
A comprehensive system will handle all these things and allow you to save them, access them, and be reminded of them with ease. There shouldn’t be a lot of fuss.
Sound about right? Let’s take a look at the system and tools — then the habits — needed to do all this.
My Setup
This might sound a bit complicated to some, but I assure you all of these tools are simple, easy to use, powerful, fast, and fun to use. Those are my criteria. I use a setup the includes Evernote, Gmail, Gcal, Anxiety and Jott. These tools allow me to capture any information, at any time, and retrieve the information quickly and easily.
Let’s take a look at how:
- Evernote: This is a great app for storing just about any information you want. In fact, if you wanted to simplify your setup, you could almost just use Evernote to remember everything. It can hold notes, clip web pages, store photos and audio notes, and more. Really cool feature: snap a picture of something on your camera phone, and send it to Evernote … then Evernote will scan the image and you can search for words within the note. This makes sending yourself notes really easy — you can take pictures of business cards, menus, receipts, documents and more … and it’s automatically searchable. Evernote is available on PCs, Macs, on the web and on mobile devices such as Blackberries and the iPhone … and it syncs very easily across all these platforms, which makes it available from anywhere. Need to find a note while on the road? Just access Evernote with your mobile device and do a quick search. It really works well for just about everything.
- Gmail: My favorite email app, Gmail uses archive and search (along with labels if you like) to quickly store and retrieve any information you need. I also send quick emails to Evernote from Gmail, allowing me to turn emails into notes that will be retrieved from anywhere. I also use a Firefox plugin to combine Gmail with Gcal (see below) so I can see emails and my calendar in one view.
- Gcal: Also known as Google Calendar, Gcal is accessible from anywhere and just works really well. I set up reminders if I want to make sure to remember something, and it’ll send me an email or text message. Need to remember to follow up on something? Set a reminder in Gcal for one week from now. Get used to setting up reminders quickly in your calendar, and you won’t have to remember anything.
- Anxiety: I actually play around with lots of to-do apps, but my current one is Anxiety. It’s very lightweight and very simple, and it sits right on my Mac. I don’t like to keep actions in my email program, so when I receive an email that requires an action, I just quickly add a to-do item to Anxiety (it just takes a quick keystroke to do that). There are lots of other great to-do apps that can be integrated with the other apps on this list, but I don’t need anything complicated — I like my apps to be light and fast.
- Jott: This handy app ties everything together, and is very valuable for when you’re on the go. Just call Jott from your cell phone and leave a message, and it’ll be sent to your email … or to another service you specify. For example, I’ve set up Evernote as one of my Jott contacts, so that when I send a Jott message to Evernote, it’s automatically added to my Evernote database and is searchable later. I’ve also added Gcal so that I can easily set up appointments and reminders while on the road. Other to-do items go to Gmail, where I’ll process them later to add to my to-do app.
Finally, I use Quicksilver on the Mac to make everything faster. I can easily send an email from Gmail, add an appointment in Gcal, or send a note to Evernote, by using the fast keyboard magic of Quicksilver — with a few keystrokes, the information is entered and sent, with no mouse required, and no apps required to be opened.
4 Critical Habits
If you want a system to work, you’ve got to develop the habits to make it work. It’s that simple — without the habits, the system will fall apart — always. You’ve done it again and again, and so have I: set up a great system that works for a few days, maybe even a week. Then it slowly falls by the wayside.
Focus on developing these habits for one month. If you can do that, the habits should stick.
- Make a note, immediately. This is perhaps the most important habit. If you can teach yourself to make a note of things right away, immediately, without putting it off, you’re halfway there. Someone give you some contact information? Make a note and save it, right now. Receive an email that requires an action? Put it on a to-do list, right now. Want to remember this website, or have a receipt you need to save? You get the picture. Don’t put it off.
- Use your lists and tools, consistently. The next most important habit. A list, a calendar, a note-taking app … none of these are worth anything if you don’t use them on a consistent basis. For some of these tools, that means checking them daily. For others, it might be 2-3 times daily or even more often. Tie these actions to something already firmly established in your daily routine: for example, check your calendar and email list right when you get into work, check your email before you leave work, or check your notes right when you get back from lunch. Find what works for you, but you get the idea.
- Make it quick and painless. If it’s difficult to add a note or save information, you’ll put it off sometimes. Same thing with retrieving the info — you don’t want to go digging through folders or waiting on a slow application to load just to get something. You want it fast and easy, or it won’t work.
- Archive and search, don’t file. Along the lines of the above item, it’s better to use a quick search function than to have to remember where you saved something. If it takes too long to find, you will stop using your system. Archiving stuff (instead of filing into folders) and then searching work fastest — Gmail is one of the best examples of that in action.
Alternative Tools and Set-ups
The tools I use are just some of the great options available. See below for other apps I recommend.
Note-taking Tools
1. OneNote: This is the default note-taking tool for anyone who uses Microsoft Office, and it’s very powerful. Unfortunately for some of us, it only runs on Windows I believe.
2. Yojimbo: A Mac-only program, Yojimbo is beloved by its many users for its power, flexibility, and easy of use. It’s super fast to add things into Yojimbo, which is a great selling point.
3. Backpack and Packrat: One of the best of many web apps for collecting info, Backpack is versatile and easy to use. You can store notes, text, images, links and more … and send items via email and SMS text messages. It also has a calendar and reminders. For Mac OSX users, there’s also a desktop application, Packrat, that works well with Backpack for off-line needs.
4. Text files: The simplest method of all — and one that I’ve used with success. Create a series of text files for different needs, and copy and paste your notes into the appropriate text files. I have text files for ideas, to-do items, errands, notes and shopping lists. Small and fast. Works very quickly if you use a program such as Quicksilver for opening the appropriate text file or even adding text to the end of the file without having to open it.
Email Apps
1. Mail.app: Mac OSX users love their Mail.app, a program that comes with Macs and that has some very powerful filters for manipulating emails and to-do items. Can sync with different computers if you use Apple’s online service.Webmail: If you don’t like Gmail, there are many other types of webmail, including Yahoo or Hotmail. I just think Gmail’s the best.
2. Outlook: Of course, Outlook is the default mail program for PCs, and it’s actually a pretty good program for capturing most of your data, including calendar and to-do items, although I won’t list it in the categories below because it’s already listed here.
Calendars
1. iCal: Free, simple, but great calendar program for Mac users.
2. 30 Boxes: Good online program, but not as good as Google Calendar, in my opinion.
3. Sunbird: Open-source, cross-platform calendar app from Mozilla, the creator of Firefox.
To-do Apps
1. Things: Awesome Getting Things Done app for the Mac. Simple, easy to use.
2. Omnifocus: Another GTD program for the Mac, maybe the most powerful there is.
3. iGTD: Yet another great GTD program for the Mac. It’s hard to choose between these three.
4. RTM: Remember the Milk is probably the most popular online to-do app, and it’s extremely flexible — you can integrate it with Gmail, Twitter, Jott, text messages, email and more. Other good online to-do apps include Nozbe and Vitalist.
On-the-go Tools
1. Mobile devices: the iPhone, Blackberry and various PDAs are all good choices for capturing tasks and information on the go.
2. Pocket notebook: You can also go retro and use a small notebook (or index cards) for capturing data. I use a Moleskine pocket notebook. Enter the data into your computer when you get home.
###
This guest post was written by Leo Babauta.
Read more from Leo Babauta at his blog, Zen Habits, or check out his effort to raise funds for humanitarian causes, Train For Humanity.
The Tim Ferriss Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world with more than one billion downloads. It has been selected for "Best of Apple Podcasts" three times, it is often the #1 interview podcast across all of Apple Podcasts, and it's been ranked #1 out of 400,000+ podcasts on many occasions. To listen to any of the past episodes for free, check out this page.
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[…] How to Never Forget Anything Again […]
Hey Tim, great stuff. Been using Gmail and Gcal for a while now, will try Evernote, so far I’ve been using Diigo to keep track of things.
It won me over because it’s a social bookmarking site and I can easily find people with similar interest to mine, but Evernote has a truly phenomenal search interface, so I’ll look into it:)
http://www.diigo.com/dashboard/geekofriendly
[…] I was perusing Tim Ferris’ blog and found my way onto this post on how never to forget anything again (is that a split infinitive? I never got the hang of them). […]
Great post! I’m very surprised that I didn’t see mention of VooDooPad, which I find much better than having a bunch of text files. Think “wiki” but in a desktop program. All of my projects have their own VooDooPad. I can just barf whatever I want into them, and transfer the info to another, more structured device, if I choose. It’s an incredible app: http://snipr.com/3tlki
I absolutely love Jott as well, and I don’t fault them for finally charging a fee for a great service.
But for those looking to ride the free beta bandwagon, reQall is a great similar service: http://www.reqall.com
Question for Tim-
Not sure how else to get this to him & it is kinda applicable….
Have you heard of InfusionSoft?
[…] application on Tim Ferris blog by an entry written by Leo Babauta of Zen Habits titled "How to never Forget Anything Again". Leo shows us his technique to store information and delivers also alternatives to that. I […]
great to see you two finally connect- brilliant!
long overdue
moleskin, postITs and HABITs make
it/you work
it’s not the brush it’s the artist
however, having said that – the right brush helps a lot
Tim, great little guide. I already use GCal GMail and Evernote so found it very interesting to read. A great tool for those with iPhones is nuevasync. It allows automatic syncing between ur GCal and iPhone calendar. Works unbelievably and incredibly well and you don’t even know its doing its job until you realise that thing you just updated in GCal is now on your iPhone or vice versa. Very handy especially when out of coverage areas to have your GCal on your iphone. One of the best features is that GCal automatically sets a 10min reminder that will show up as an alert on your iPhone. So instead of your computer getting bogged down with alerts (or you missing alerts while away from your comp) your iphone will give you them. And you can even change alerts in GCal to 1hour for example and your alerts on your iPhone will come 1 hour prior to the even. Changed the way I organise my life. I’ll often also put phone#s or addresses in GCal and then its on my phone next to the event for reference or if I search my calendar.
wooooooh technology rules
[…] Tim please tell us how to never forget anything ever again…This might sound a bit complicated to some, but I assure you all of these tools are simple, easy to use, powerful, fast, and fun to use. Those are my criteria. I use a setup the includes Evernote, Gmail, Gcal, Anxiety and Jott. These tools allow me to capture any information, at any time, and retrieve the information quickly and easily. (via four hour work week) […]
I use Spanning Sync to make my GCal and iCal talk to each other. Amazing stuff for something so cheap.
My new favorite GTD, task tracking tool is Vitalist. Its clean and simple. I also use Jott in conjunction with Vitalist. These
Iam going to help y’all out here a little bit. Now when I read “4hr workweek” I was real impressed with Tims minimalist approach to maximum output. This post seems to violate this concept.
My method of keeping notes and such involves using 3 impliments and doesnt involve complexities like, batteries, pda’s and cellphones all of which add more possiblilities for problems.
First, I have a well inked, collapsable pen that “telescopes” into itself and makes it that much more portable. Second, I have a regular date book, you know the ones with the cute puppies, mountainscapes etc. the cheesier the better, Lastly I have sticky post it notes that I put in the back jacket of the date planner. Now my system is REAL simple. First thing I do in the morning is take my post it note pad and write my to-do list for the day and I post it on the inside leaf of the planner.
Now I take another post it and put it on the inside of the front leaf. This is my “bucket” where if I have random thoughts, need to remember items etc. I just open the planner and jot it down.
End of day, I take “bucket” memo sheet and organise components accordingly. Appointments are jotted down as I make them directly into date planner. To do items are maked off as done.
This whole set-up fits in my back pocket comfortably (easier than a check register). Its highly portable, reliable, simplistic, cheap and extremely effective which makes it more likely it will be used.
How about this system. First buy yourself a “telescoping” collapsable pen, a $5.00 date planner and a packet of 5″x3″ sticky notes.
Compile to do list on sticky note, paste on front leaf of day planner. Put second sticky note on back leaf for random thoughts, ideas, memos etc. for future organization, this functions just as a “memory bucket”. Check off things on front leaf to do list as done, use date planner to record appointments and “bucket memo” for memory aid.
This whole system fits in your back pocket like a check register, costs about 10 bucks, never breaks down or runs out of batteries, gets stolen etc. If you really want to go high tech. get one of those digital voice recorders that attach on your key chain and use that as your “Bucket”.
[…] How to Never Forget Anything Again. In this post, the author lists some tools to help you to take notes, track projects, and make your to-do lists. All to use technology in your favor–Interesting. It’s a system to “Never Forget Again”! […]
[…] How to Never Forget Anything Again An exhaustive post from Leo Babauta on the Four-Hour Work Week blog with tips and pointers to tools that can help you remember to-dos and get things done: “The human brain is a wonderful thing, but it’s a bit faulty as a tool for remembering things. Luckily for us (and for our frazzled brains), technology has stepped in to help out. With the proper habits and the right tools, you and your brain won’t have to remember a thing again.” […]
I’ve cobbled together a little system that works well for me:
I use Jott (now Dial2Do since Jott went paid) to call iwantsandy.com . Sandy sends an email with my to-do to my Gmail account. Using the Firefox extension GcalAgenda and some filter tweaks, appointments get automatically added to my Gcalender. And using the RTM gadget for Gmail, tasks get added to my RTM. Both my Gcal and RTM are displayed in my Gmail, or I can go to their websites. Or using Gears I can make them stand-alone on my desktop.
In addition, Sandy compiles a daily agenda for me that I can print out and take, or have texted to me. This is why I don’t just send an email to myself using Dial2Do. I want Sandy to go ahead and compile my agenda for me.
I’ll have to check out sending things to Evernote. I didn’t realize I could do that.
Great write-up, Leo. Thanks for the Evernote suggestion… that’s definitely one to look into.
I hope that you and a friend to pay, but also the hope that you will be able to come to Hangzhou – a really beautiful city to visit
Outlook is a life saver i would forget every meeting at work and i would probably never leave my desk if it wasn’t for that program. Great article these seem like some cool alternatives i will check them out
Great post Tim! Glad to catch up with you at Blogworld. I agree that Gmail is fantastic, and I also agree with most of the hlist here. Stay well and I’ll keep reading.
Great post! I didn’t even realize some of this existed. If you’re like me and have a zillion ideas coming through your mind every second, it is important to find an organized place to put them. I deal with many different projects at the same time and my mind is extremely creative so there is a lot to keep up with! Trying to do this with paper just doesn’t work. I’d never keep up with it. My memory is overtaxed anyway plus with some physical limitations that I have, remembering just doesn’t work for me! That’s what my iphone and laptop are for!
[…] link is a guest post by Leo from ZenHabits.com on the Four Hour Work Week blog. The post is titled How to Never Forget Anything Again and it is a great post that goes through some of the great tools that are available for running our […]
Hi Leo,
Windows users may like to try TaskMerlin. Regarding the critical habits you mention, it’s quick to add notes, and has a fast search capability. It also integrates with Outlook e-mail. To apply GTD within TaskMerlin, see http://www.taskmerlin.com/gtd.aspx .
I’m with Wendy and Seamus – the simpler, the better. Plus, if I lose a paper to do list I haven’t lost an expensive device that I’ll have to remember to replace!
JLibbey, on the one hand, it’s true that if I lose my iPhone I’ve lost an expensive device I’ll have to replace… on the other, it’s my PHONE, which I’ll have to replace anyway! (grin)
i use tip one, make a note immediately, most of the time. it seems to help
[…] How to Never Forget Anything Again – The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss (tags: zenhabits toread tools todo tips timemanagement technology productivity trick timferriss timferris) […]
I’ve read all the comments here and Leos system and I honestly think mine is FAR better than all of them.
I use a simple text file application on my iPhone called Magipad and I organize my to do list on it by context.
If something comes up I need to do I just type it in.
My calendar is in a text file.
Your systems sound really, really complicated to me.
Even pen and paper is alot more complicated because you can’t easily edit lists and notes and the notepads take up a lot of space.
[…] How to Never Forget Anything Again – The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss Systems allow stress-free productivity without wasting mental RAM. (Photo: Fotopakismo) The human brain is a wonderful thing, but it's a … (tags: ping.fm) […]
Try infoaxe. With infoaxe every page that you see on the Web gets added to your personal web memory and is now searchable. So you no longer need to bookmark/email links to yourself to remember a page.
you can also access your web memory across multiple machines/browsers.
Its a search engine for your personal slice of the web.
disclaimer – am a founder of infoaxe.
Sweet!!!
[…] The first requires good, easy-to-use tools. If it takes work to collect tasks, you won’t do it. Tim Ferriss, author of the four-hour workweek, recently talked about how he does it. […]
[…] especially when writing guest posts for other sites. (Note: check out some of our guest posts at – FourHourWorkWeek, ProBlogger, ChrisBrogan, SuccessfulBlog, […]
[…] Within a few days I was instantly feeling more organized by an article I found on his blog – How To Never Forget Anything blog post. This blog post gives tons of examples on tools and systems you can use to get more […]
The archive and search method is the one I use for email, but I make it one step simpler. I keep all my emails in my inbox and use spotlight on my Mac to search them. Mail.app allows me to create search folders which are automatically updated with emails based on definded search criteria. In this way, all my emails are also available on my iPhone as well. As a backup, I forward all emails to my gmail account.
Things on the iPhone is a great on-the-go to-do list which syncs with my Mac. Don’t need anything else.
[…] software (SVN is free) for document management, and a tickler/productivity system like Tim Ferriss never forget anything again – is an inexpensive and workable solution. The downside is that like any D.I.Y. project, it just […]
I can’t believe nobody’s mentioned Ultra Recall. Sounds like Evernote won’t support a full GTD because it’s not an unlimited crosslinking database. That’s why you need separate to-do list apps.
I went with individual task items in UR for a while but switched over to a daypage system. Cut and paste into each next day, summarize as you go and review periodically. Then you can link out into task or project items if it expands. Works for me, plus it’s easy to capture your accomplishments at the end of the week.
I use an At-a-Glance paper calendar with daily vertical lines. Then I mastered the unbreakable habit of:
1. jotting down in an available time/date every thing I must do or go to with file numbers, phonenumbers, addresses and the like that is relevant to the activity.
2. looking at my calendar every day to see what I had to do and then do it.
The advantage is that this method will survive a computer crash or palm pilot failure and the activites to be accomplished are always on time (usually finished early). Moreover, I can’t over book and, most importantly, I don’t have to remember anything. All I have to do is look at my calendar.
Sorry about not using the latest innovation and software to replace something which only requires discipline and habit.
I’ve recently released a similar program capable of tracking virtually any personal and data (the url is assigned to my name above). It is build on the concept of sections, items and properties; you might wish to include it into your review.
Best wishes,
Andrew
[…] wrote a guest article on 4 different applications you can use in tandem to help remember everything you have to do. […]
A note on text files: I originally did that. But that quickly blossomed to about 1.1 gigabytes of text files, as I regularly generated 1-5MB of text per day. And alas, Vista’s tagging doesn’t work as well as it could (it hardly works at all).
So I installed a wiki on my machine. A wiki running on localhost is fairly simple to set up, and it’s like a text editor on crack; I can categorize all my doodles, people’s info, etc., and each page can be in multiple categories and fairly simply link to others. It’s hardly harder than Notepad, and when I’m at home, I can access my notes from anywhere on the network without having to set up complex network sharing.
My first computer running a wiki, I set up IIS and OpenWiki by myself, just so I could legitimately say I had practical experience with IIS and wiki software. On every computer after (or when I’m asked to install a wiki on someone else’s computer), there’s software packages available like BitNami that make installing and maintaining a one-computer wiki dead simple.
The only downside is that it’s harder to back up, but there’s bound to be a workaround for that too.
This is great! I’m getting Evernote right now. -Roger Ost
[…] help you remember things, many of the tools I use daily and my favourite is probably evernote. The post also offers some tips on the best way to create notes – a good read check it […]
Evernote: I am about to buy a new printer/scanner/all-in-one. I want to start with Evernote too. Anyone can please tell me whitch all-in-one (brands, maybe models) are capable scan and directly send to Evernote, just with one single set-up or app or push button?
Gratefully, Urs
great to see you two finally connect- brilliant!
long overdue
moleskin, postITs and HABITs make
it/you work
I have successfully reduced my 20+ storage mediums into one, Evernote.
Maybe Siri from Apple’s iPhone will now make sure we never forget 🙂
For task management and to do list purposes we use http://www.kpi.com which offers integrated solutions of different tools
Hi,
Anxiety is only for Mac users.
For Windows, is there any relative app?
Thanks in advance for your time
Ummm, Tim? I thought Jott was dead! How’re you still using it as part of your workflow? http://www.nuance.com/for-individuals/by-product/voice-to-text/index.htm
I have heard about Evernote and I have been using Google Calender for remember stuffs. What about Asana task management?
How to Never Forget Anything Again? I thought this article is about how to remember things with your own brain with right methods, relying too much on technology will make our brain retarded -_- If you’ve a habit of jotting down everything you need to remember, you won’t survive without a notebook lol…
I never realised that there are apps that can help you to remember something. Thanks. I always create a “what I need to remember” list, and I read this list every day until I can remember everything.
This is very helpful and your right if your not repetitive with the process then it wont get done. I realized a while ago that I needed to write everything down I would use my phone note section, use sticky notes and my calender. I will look into a lot of your apps you mentioned. Thank you.
It’s one thing to say “use your lists and planners”, but if I knew how to do that regularly, I wouldn’t be here looking for a new system
Onenote runs on Windows, Mac, iOS and in any browser. It is searchable and can store text, web clips, audio, video, hand writing, converts hand writing to text and is pretty much awesome. Microsofts best kept secret unfortunately.
todoist by Google for a to do and list making app. I use it religiously multiple times a day.
Don’t forget the brilliantly simple FollowUpThen.com which let’s you write emails to your future self. Try it right away and send an email to 3days@fut.io to remember using FollowUpThen. I love it & use it all the time.
Hi Tim, #3 link (iGTD) in To-do Apps doesn’t work.
OneNote does work on Mac. Don’t like the layout as much, but it’s there and syncs with IOS and Windows versions.
Here is a simple short term add-on to the great advice above. Tie a ‘string’ around your finger…. No seriously. Visual linguistic programming… If you need to remember something long enough to get it to your calendar, use a pen to ink a small circle on the back of your hand. Condense what you are trying to recall to a single word or two word combination. As you draw the circle repeat the words. You will repeatedly see the circle in your periphery throughout the day, each time repeat the words which link to the memory. Eventually the image (you see repeatedly) and the linked words embed and stick with you until the circle is intentionally removed. This works really well for recall on something for a day (2 if you refresh the image). Play with the technique or add in other memory tricks and you will be surprised at the complex nature of information that a simple circle on the back of your hand can be programmed with for several days. A second shape (slash through the circle) can become a second program with a totally unrelated memory. Iv’e maintained up to three without information loss. Just two cents… take it for what its worth.
Hi all, I have a notoriously bad memory due to having ADHD, so this post is especially meaningful to me. Not only do I actively use many of these strategies to aid my own poor memory, I have a few finer points to add to this post:
——————————————————————————–
RULE: If it’s valuable, tie it to a string.
——————————————————————————–
That way you’ll never lose anything OR waste endless time looking for those things. I have an intricate lanyard system. Here are some suggestions:
– My keys are on a lanyard so it’s either hanging on a hook or fastened to my pants while I’m out.
– I have a keyring pen so that I never have to awkwardly ask strangers for a pen.
– I also have a Tile device on my keyring so I can track my keys or my phone if I lose them.
– I have two sunglasses cases attached to my bag so I can always have a safe place to put my glasses, or sunglasses.
– I have a mini flashlight fastened to my bedside so I never lose it. (It’s always missing right when you need it!)
– A ‘nail care kit’ secure for the same reason.
– A pencil case (stocked with almost every bit of stationery I could ever need in a given day)
– A backup pencil case (in case I lose the first pencil case)
– An artist’s pencil case (for art supplies)
– A miscellaneous case (for extras)
– Handsanitizer. (Now I can always find it, right when I need it.)
– I also tend to forget the stove on a lot, so I’m attaching rubber bands to the oven knobs. That way if I turn the oven on, I’ll have a rubber band on my wrist as a visual cue to remember the stove is on.
——————————————————————————————-
Here are some finer points for reminder apps:
——————————————————————————————-
I use the Reminders app for the iPhone, but it’s setup in a more advanced way. dI have each reminder filed under one of five categories:
– To do list (for any future task)
– Daily reminders (for things I want to remember daily)
– Recurring reminders (for things that I want to remember periodically
– Birthdays and anniversaries
– Expiration dates (for things like my driver’s license and passport that I need to remember to renew).
—————————————————————————————————–
I always forget to drink enough water every day. Here’s what I do:
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I have numbered water bottles which stay in strategic locations around my house. This helps for a variety of reasons. I know where each water bottle should be, so I never lose them. I also have an idea of how much water I’ve drank for the day OVERALL. This helps because if I look around and see that bottles 2 and 3 are still full and it’s dinner time, then it’ll be an extra reminder for me to go ahead and drink more water. I cannot stress this point enough. If you live with a significant other, color-code your water bottles. I use blue, she uses red. That way you don’t get confused about who’s drinking what. ]
The numbering system:
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I also use this numbering system for the lighters in my house. I have four which are strategically placed in various spots in the house with their own corresponding numbers. I have four so I’m unlikely to run out of lighters. And the numbers help me know if a lighter is missing or out of place.
The coloring system:
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I also use the color coding system for coffee mugs in the house. I have a blue one, my girlfriend has a red. The visual cue helps me to keep track of my mug throughout the day so I don’t forget which much I was using. This prevents a massive buildup of dishes throughout the day.
The duplicate system:
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I have extra pair of everything. That way I don’t waste time looking for things. I mentioned having extra water bottles, lighters, pencil cases. Another key point: GET EXTRA KEYS TO EVERYTHING! I have 2-3 keys for everything. That way I just plan to lose my keys sooner or later. When that happens, I just grab my spare keys and wait for the missing keys to turn up. NO MORE LOOKING FOR CAR KEYS IN THE MORNING! And if the Devil strikes twice and I lose my second set of keys, I have a third. Muahahahahaha…
The friendship system:
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Lastly, I’m terrible at keeping in touch with family and friends, so I have scheduled ‘Anton’s Office Hours’ on my calendar on Sunday evening. That way I MAKE time to call the people I care about. Everyone knows that 7 – 8:30 is my time to sit near the phone, so they also remember to call me too!
It looks like Jott no longer exists as a dictation product. Can anyone recommend something that they use today?
So Tim and Team,
I often need to take notes while I am driving and listening to podcasts ( yours mainly).
Any tool can you suggestto take notes while driving.
PS Siri cannot write properly on notes due to my poor and heavy secondary language english accents.
Thanks
Ronak
Thank you for sharing, Tim.
What you think of Google Keep as opposed to Evernote? I kind of like Keep in the way its simple and intuitive but I might give Evernote a go as well.
Tim, Great stuff BUT I need
this for PC/Android… To-do tool, etc. reinstalled Evernote but it is not what I need. Suggestions???
sure. Give team.do a try -very easy to use. also has a kick ass android app (also on iphone)
OneNote is available for Android. I dropped evernote after they changed their device policy.
What did they change?
It has been 10 years since this post. Would like an update.
I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned AirTable.
Most of the note taking type tools out there don’t allow you to establish the relationships between various items. This leads to duplicate entries and forgetting how different data relates to other “stuff”.
I discovered AirTable when I started using it for business purposes. But I wound up using it to track workouts, marketing campaigns, coffee shops, and it’s even a “command center” for a substantial business project.
I’ve pretty much replaced Trello, Google Sheets, and Toggl, just to name a few.
AirTable is free (up to a generous limit) and very powerful while being ridiculously user friendly.
*I don’t get anything for proselyting for AirTable, I’m just a fanboy. 🙂
Say it out loud. Have you ever wondered if you shut the garage door after leaving the house. Or left your credit card at a restaurant, or forgotten your hotel door card in your room? Saying it out loud files it away in the completed actions taken file and you can remember. At the restaurant a simple , “why can’t you just go to your home!” gets your credit card back in your wallet. (Billy Madison) Or I always put my room key in my back right pocket, a simple “slap that ass” works here. It transfer from system 1 to system 2 (thinking fast a slow) and brings conscious thought to your actions.
I use TickTick intergration with Google Assistant via IFTTT. Lying in bed at midnight and remember something you need to do? “Hey Google, add ‘x task’ to TickTick”. Out of my brain and into my todo list.