Unitasking is all the rage these days, and sometimes all you need to stay on task is an always-visible reminder of that one thing you should be doing. Here’s how to create a single-goal taskbar reminder with the Windows scripting application, AutoHotkey. More »
Microsoft Windows – Windows – Windows 7 – Utilities – Shareware
Windows/Mac/Linux (Adobe AIR): We’ve written about a lot of desktop clients that are essentially site-specific browsers (SSBs), but free AIR client Google Tasks helps you consolidate your clients by allowing access to most Google apps in mobile form.
Google Tasks may be one of the lesser-used Google services, but for those who like their tasks integrated with everything else Google in their lives, it certainly does the trick. Now, thanks to the same developer as Remember the Task (a desktop client for Lifehacker-favorite Remember the Milk), you can get Google Tasks in a small window on your desktop—plus so much more.
The really cool thing about the Google Tasks client is that, since it’s merely built on the Google Mobile API, you can actually access any Google app available as a mobile site from Google Tasks. Just scroll to the top and choose your app (or hit “more” for a larger list), and you can access Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and others within the same client, essentially making it an all-around Google Mobile client. If you feel like you have one too many SSBs open at any given time, this is a pretty nice solution.
Google Tasks is a free download for all platforms, and requires Adobe AIR.
There's a reason "Out of sight, out of mind" is such a common phrase—people forget things. Enter web site Remindd, a super simple solution to remembering events and appointments that should not be forgotten.
Once you've created an account, using the site is straightforward. Enter your reminder name, set a date and time for your reminder, and you're all set. You'll receive an alert via email—and SMS, if selected—five minutes before the time you chose. If you don't enter a time, your reminder will arrive at 12 AM. Be sure to set your time zone; the default is Eastern time.
Remindd sends SMS reminders through Zeep Mobile. SMS is a free option for the US only, although your standard carrier charges apply. Remindd isn’t the sole contender in the reminder market (we love Google Calendar for setting events and reminders), but it’s dead simple and works as it should.
Dear Lifehacker,
I forward emails to Remember the Milk to create followup reminders, but they always end up in the inbox. Is there any way I can put them into a different list?
Sincerely,
Following Up
Dear Following Up,
You can do more than just send emails to create a task on a specific list—you can also set the due date, tags, priority, or even make repeat using these instructions from the Remember the Milk help section.
Simply forward your email to your specially formatted secret email address found in the RTM settings panel, and then add any one of the following lines to the beginning of the message body to set the task parameters:
Priority: 1
Due: Monday at 9am
Repeat: Every Week
Estimate: 2 hours
Tags: report coffee
List: Followup
––-
This is a heading for the first note.
––-
The key is to end your list with 3 dashes, to signify to RTM that everything below should be considered a note—and keep in mind that the subject line will be the name of the task in RTM.
Since typing all of that every time you want to forward an email would get really tedious, you can use Lifehacker’s own text substitution utility Texter to do most of the typing for you. Just create a new hotstring similar to this one, which will insert the text anywhere you type “fup1″ and hit the tab key:
The magic piece of text in this hotstring is the %| bit, which will place your cursor right at that location once the text has been inserted—in this example the cursor is left right where the due date is so you can easily type in a date (like "next friday").
You could (and should) add in your own set of options to the Texter hotstrings, or you could even create multiple pre-defined hotstrings for common followup text. Note that sometimes rich text formatting in your email client will confuse Remember the Milk’s parser, so you may want to stick with plain text if possible.
Update: As marness points out in the comments, you can also create custom signatures or something like Outlook’s quick parts in your email client to accomplish the same thing without extra software. Thanks!
Love and Geekery,
Lifehacker
