Remember The Milk / Forums / Tips & Tricks

Reply to Evernote integration DIY

andrewski (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi davepriley1,
I see what you mean now. I thought you were using our then-very-new Evernote integration and it was bumping you to the web instead of the app (which is what our Android app will do if you don't have the Evernote app installed).

Let us know if you have any further problems with either way of connecting your tasks with your notes!

Reply to Evernote integration DIY

davepriley1 (Pro) says:

Andrew, thanks for looking into this.

I think I into what is causing the issue. It looks like the PC and Mac versions of Evernote create a link which will launch Evernote app which will allow the Evernote note to be modified.

However, the Android Evernote App will only allow a shared (eg read only) to be created.

It appears to be an Evernote issue not an RTM issue.

Thanks,

Reply to Make your work really flow with Evernote and Remember the Milk!

emily (Remember The Milk) says:

Nice tip, ganzee! You're this week's Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner, so we've added a free year of Pro to your Remember The Milk account. :)

Real Life Achievements

kittenrose (Pro) says:

Howdy :)

Never suggested a tip before so here goes. Apologies if someone beat me to it ;)

So I'm a bit of losery gamer geek kinda person. And I am motivated purely by game style points and quests. XD So here's the idea, you set tasks for things you want to achieve with the tag 'achievements'. Then have two smart lists:
1) Pending achievements. Mini self-set quests you've embarked on.
status:incomplete and tag:achievements
2) Achievements. A hall of fame of how bad ass you are.
status:completed and tag:achievements

Achievements can be anything from run 10km, to cooking a new dish. Whatever you want. But it's a nice little motivator to give yourself a few challenges. Particularly when you factor in that your challenges can have due dates. A bit of extra friendly pressure :)

Reply to RTM Custom Fluid Design

ollinger (Pro) says:

real good work! thanks!

Reply to RTM and Speak Here Now! (And now the joy of hands-free "task collecting".)

marekhappy says:

Great input / thanks for inspiration! ;-)

Reply to Keeping It Simple

bluesgeek (Pro) says:

Okay, no, it's not. Well, it was a useful if painful exercise, throwing away the torn paper. I imagine if I learned to do something like that with RTM, I could save a lot of end-of-day postponing!

Reply to Keeping It Simple

bluesgeek (Pro) says:

I see that must be the Covey quadrant method, yes?

Reply to Keeping It Simple

bluesgeek (Pro) says:

The sales trainer, the late Warren Wexler, used the four-corner method in the old paper days. Each time you pick up an actionable document, you tear off a corner. After tearing off the fourth corner, and picking it up for the fifth time, you delete it... because you're never going to act on it.

Reply to A Bit Better RTM

bluesgeek (Pro) says:

I've been running Firefox on the side as a de facto RTM desktop app, while using Safari for all other browsing and web services.

Reply to RTM as project management

bluesgeek (Pro) says:

Great idea! Thanks. I've been using a single task template set up with default notes to manage the individual tasks, but I like your approach better.

Reply to RTM and Speak Here Now! (And now the joy of hands-free "task collecting".)

clziegler (Pro) says:

I have the same question and thank you.

Reply to Make your work really flow with Evernote and Remember the Milk!

johnwin says:

Great post ganzee

RTM as project management

werru says:

Hello I have a tips that possible may help.

I'm using RTM for my work mostly as GTD system, but sometime as project management too.
I have mini projects that are repeated. Ordinary only name of the customer is changed. And I created some default project that consist of 10-15 tasks with tag default_project_type1 ( I have several types). Then my work gives me project I do the list below
- find default_project with appropriate set of task
- select all task (link before the tasks list)
- duplicate all selected
- only duplicated task are selected. Rename tag for copied task from default_project for example to client's name.
- check tasks and correct some details
- and you on a go!

Reply to Simple Lotus Notes Intergration and viewing of Tasks and Events

sonyasinglee (Pro) says:

I added it as an iGoogle Gadget in the Sidebar as per bvg013. Works really well, particularly with smart add syntax. Only issue I have with it now is that I need to resize the height from the default 200px and I haven't yet figured out how to do that...

Reply to Add tasks using Alfred on a Mac (via RTM email)

ebyryan (Pro) says:

There is also a workflow that uses milkmaid on the command line to give you RTM info right within Alfred http://www.alfredforum.com/topic/971-if-you-are-a-remember-the-milk-fan/

Reply to The "Add Time Estimate" Smart List

emily (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi milkiglo,

Nice Smart List! Just wanted to let you know that you're this week's Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner. We've added a free year of Pro to your account. :)

Reply to A Bit Better RTM

fturner (Pro) says:

This has been asked before, but here goes: Is there any chance to make this run as an extension for Safari?

I'm trying to transition to Safari after realizing Google will probably never update Chrome to 64-bit, and because of its improvements in performance. But going back to un-extended RTM is bloodcurdling. :)

Make your work really flow with Evernote and Remember the Milk!

ganzee (Pro) says:

Did you know that you can email actionable items to Evernote and have them automagically appear in Remember the Milk?

Follow the instructions available at the link below to integrate your Evernote and Remember the Milk accounts.

http://blog.rememberthemilk.com/2013/05/manage-your-evernote-reminders-with-remember-the-milk/

Now things get really clever....

When you get an email that needs action on a later date you simply send the mail with attachments to your Evernote email address. If you add a due date to the end of the subject line in the following format !YYYY/MM/DD, a reminder will be created in Evernote. This will automatically create a new task in your Remember the Milk inbox with the due date specified.

So far so good....

But what if you have something for which the due date has not yet been set? Up til now, you could copy the specific Evernote note url to the task url in Remember the Milk. Whilst this works, it is time-consuming, and essentially a manual hack.

All of this has now changed...

When you email an actionable item to Evernote for which the due is not yet known or agreed, simply omit the YYYY/MM/DD element from the !YYYY/MM/DD described above. For example: a subject line of 'Review new eBook !' will create a note in Evernote with Reminder and an associated task in Remember the Milk.

By adopting this approach, my Weekly Review was both fun and immense in equal measure. Having all of my support materials from Evernote linked to Remember the Milk made the whole process a breeze. What's more, I can do this all on web or mobile platforms (Windows will eventually give another option). I love how I can click through from Remember the Milk.and open the Evernote note. By no longer having to use the url hack, this just 'feels right'.

Try it out and let me know what you think!

Add tasks using Alfred on a Mac (via RTM email)

aberlee (Pro) says:

Hi all,

IDEA: open up Alfred, type in RTM hit tab and write down what you want to add to your to-do list in Remember the Milk. Hit enter and Alfred makes sure you get things done
I made a workflow for just that.

HOW: Alfred's query becomes the subject for an email send by Sparrow (see below, you can use it with Mail as well), which is sent to your personal Remember the Milk account.

MAKE SURE TO ENTER THE EMAIL ADDRESS IN THE SCRIPT...

Alterations to make it work with Mail (Standard in the workflow shared is Sparrow)
1. open up the workflow
2. open up the script
3. Change Sparrow to Mail
4. Change sendmessage to send
5. Save!

That's it.

You can download the workflow here: http://bit.ly/10WujJN

Hope it helps!

Best, Anna

The usefulness of a Festivities list!

natenauert says:

My wife and I are both the youngest of six kids in our families, so between the siblings and all the in-laws, step-parents, and good friends in our lives, we send a LOT of birthday cards each year! In most cases, when someone is special enough to us to warrant sending a card and/or gift, we both want to write a personal note as well. The only problem is sitting down at the same time to do so numerous times month after month, creating lots of individual to-do items that we have to tackle case by case.

Enter RTM, and our Festivities task list! On the first of every month a task pops up titled "Fill out all birthday cards for the month." In a note attached to the task, we keep a month-by-month breakdown of relevant birthdays. That way, we can sit down just once to do all the note-writing, stamp-licking, address-enscribing necessary for the whole month. We then have tasks pop up about 1 week before each birthday that simply says "Place Shawn's card in the mail," and recurs annually. That way the card is all ready to go and the only thing to be done is to mail it in a timely manner--not too early, not too late.

So now we never forget the milk…or a loved one's birthday!

Keeping It Simple

lyurman (Pro) says:

There are lots of wonderful uses for remember the milk, but what I find what works for me is to keep it simple. I use the inbox to store all of my tasks and they are sorted by due date. I use the due date as the "Do" date and everything due today must be done today. I use the repeat option to repeat tasks on a weekly or monthly basis

I use tags to indicate the progress in case if I have to come back to a task such as #started #halfwaydone #almostdone, etc. But one of the most important things that I do is to keep only the important tasks on my list and delete the rest. Doing those things help me be more organized and less stressed

Reply to Planning an afternoon flurry of activity...

emily (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi pauldb,

Love this tip! You're this week's Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner, so we've added a year of Pro to your Remember The Milk account.

Thanks for sharing! :)

Reply to Android App

andrewski (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi robert.barkley,
It's not possible to lock the app in addition to your phone; you could use your phone's security to lock it however. You can always use the Reset feature in the app's Settings, but this would force you to log in before the app will sync again.

It's not possible to use the app with multiple accounts, but you could share lists between your and your wife's accounts, and view both from one account.

Hope this helps! Let us know if you have any other questions.

Customer base in the RTM

vladikin.m (Pro) says:

In the folder I keep clients data about your customers and write down all the results of negotiations with them on the phone or face to face.
As well as appointing date for the next call or visit.
In the end, I can always see what I agreed with the client at the last conversation.
List of customers is always with me.

I hope you enjoy my tip!

Sorry for the mistakes I have translated the text with google translator.

Reply to Evernote integration DIY

andrewski (Remember The Milk) says:

davepriley1,
Sorry for the delay in posting back again. 4.1 should indeed work for this, so you may want to make sure you have the latest version of the Evernote app as well.

If it's still not working for you, you may want to remove both Remember The Milk's and Evernote's apps and reinstall them from the Play Store.

Hope that helps!

Android App

robert.barkley says:

I just signed up as of yesterday so I am new. I think maybe this question has been addressed already, I just have not foud the answer yet. My question has to do with the phone app. I down loaded the phone app last night to track my task/to do list. Everything seems to work well, and I am still in the learning mode. My question is when you finish looking at your account on the phone, is there a way to close the app so that other will not see your schedule if someone else picks up your phone. Pluse I want to encurage my wife to open an account, but I would like for her to be able to see her account as well as my account as needed. So I would like to have to ability to log into other account with the phone app, but I don't know how to log out of my account when i am done. May I get a little help with how to make this happen?

Using IFTTT to receive information

iamnotarhino says:

You can use http://ifttt.com to automatically create tasks. For example, set the recipe with weather as the"trigger" and then set it so that it would send a gmail to your Remember the Milk inbox address. Now every day at a set time, tomorrow's weather forecast will be sent to your list with the due date as tomorrow, conditions as the title and the highest and lowest temperatures in a note (it is like this automatically but you can change that).

You can also change the "trigger" part to receive notifications of new blog posts (use the feed trigger), twitter or facebook posts, instagram updates or anything like that to save the trouble of visiting all those websites.

Reply to Evernote integration DIY

andrewski (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi davepriley1,
I'm not sure which version of Evernote/Android supports this (I will double-check) but the note should open in a simplified view where you can view it or edit it, and pressing the Back button would return to Remember The Milk. (Tapping the Evernote logo at the top left will take you to the full app.) Sorry you're not seeing this!

Reply to Evernote integration DIY

davepriley1 (Pro) says:

Question for anyone who can answer.

I'm running g RTM and Evernote on my Android 4.1 device. When I perform the steps outlined above I can "link" my RTM task with my Evernote note BUT it only opens the Evernote note in my website browser, not my native Evernote app.

Any ideas how I can get this to open directly to my native Evernote app?

Thanks

multiple RTM accounts to keep work and home tasks organized

nicoledb (Pro) says:

I've been using @home and @work lists to keep my private and work-related tasks separate, and an additional @anywhere list for stuff that I can/want to do at either place. But since I'm using lots of tags to denote projects and contexts, my task cloud became a bit big. And I kept seeing all my home-tags even when trying to concentrate on the @work-list.

So I set up 2 additional RTM-accounts, one for home tasks and one for work tasks. I'm sharing my @home and @anywhere lists with the home-account, and the @work and @anywhere with the work-account. Now my task cloud stays within manageable proportions, and I have a much better separation of private and work-related tasks. I don't see my private tags when I'm at work and vice-versa, so I can concentrate better on whatever I'm supposed to be concentrating at.

Reply to Snooze List

hiteshnh (Pro) says:

Thanks! :)
Keep up the great work.

Due Now-ish (making up for lost Notifications)

mightybs (Pro) says:

While the available search options weren't perfect I found I needed a list to simulate how I used to use the "Notifications" bar from the last version of the Android App. When I didn't get to something right away, it would stay in that bar to remind me to get to it later. With the removal of that bar I created a new smart list to try and capture the spirit of that and using a home screen widget I get a very quick way to check nearly due or slightly overdue tasks.

Here's how I started:
status:incomplete AND (due:yesterday OR due:today OR due:tomorrow)

Then I thought it would also be nice to be reminded of tasks I added today, and are due "soon":
status:incomplete AND ((due:yesterday OR due:today OR due:tomorrow) OR (added:today AND dueWithin:5 days))

Once I had used that list I thought it would be good to also see stuff that has a specific tag but could be done at any time. Specifically I use tasks to remind me about the expiration of a Groupon that I've purchased. I use the due date to show when it expires, and I tag them with #groupon. Adding them to this list was easy and again gives me a quick glance at things that might be a far future due date, but I also want to be aware of as I can do them now.

status:incomplete AND ((due:yesterday OR due:today OR due:tomorrow) OR (added:today AND dueWithin:5 days) OR tag:groupon)

Now I've got a smart list that shows me anything I missed yesterday, and due within the next couple of days with some specific pieces of information. If RTM adds the ability to search backwards further, I would have loved something like "dueWithing:7 days ago" to be able to go back a few days further than yesterday, but it's a smart list I use several times a day now.

I hope it helps you create the right smart list for you!

Reply to Snooze List

emily (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi hiteshnh,

Very nice use of "dueBefore"!

You're this week's Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner, so we've added a free year of Pro to your Remember The Milk account. :)

Reply to Using the iOS Drafts App to Add RTM Tasks

mlapida (Pro) says:

I've noticed that the URL scheme 'rtm://' will open Remember the Milk, but nothing will be entered in. Does anyone know if I'm just missing some parameters, or is this functionality incomplete? It seems like this would be the best method for creating RTM tasks from drafts.

Sorting Lists

zcademy says:

I've just come back to RTM after trying several other systems. I'm setting up a GTD type system for my family, personal and work tasks (I'm a single mom freelancer).

I know I'm going to have many different lists, and I won't be adding them in the order I want to see them. Since the lists are shown in the tabs alphabetically (with Inbox first), I'm setting up a system as I go.

Any list name preceded by 0. is a list I want to see at the beginning of the tabs, for example 0.Urgent. Next most important are lists with 1., and so on, down to the 9. lists which I don't expect to be looking at much at all. [Archives and the like.]

Because I'm using each number several times, I won't run out, or need to renumber everything if I need another very important list. I don't need to get fussy with exact order but if I did, I could use a code such as 0a., 0b., etc.

I'm hoping list ordering (and hiding) will be in a future upgrade, but for now, this is going to work.

Reply to A Bit Better RTM

andrew.paprotsky (Pro) says:

I've updated the extension to support Firefox 22.0+ and submitted version 0.0.2.92 to Mozilla for review.

The latest version can be downloaded here https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/a-bit-better-rtm/versions/

Tag Automatically

dougbrown77 says:

I use a less time consuming way to "tag" tasks.

I have a list of standard words that I use when adding a task. For example: "buy", "call", "email", "follow up" etc

Furthermore, I have set up a series of "smart lists" that use matching words. For example I have a smart list that searches for the word "buy".

I freely add tasks knowing that when I use the "standard words" the tasks will find their way to the appropriate smart list. I find this method to be a real time saver.

Oh and this method works well with Siri!

Reply to RTM and Speak Here Now! (And now the joy of hands-free "task collecting".)

dacosolutions (Pro) says:

great post. I cannot find in the Speak Here Now documentation how to configure the default "command" to "remember" for RTM? Thank You.

Reply to A Bit Better RTM

toenex (Pro) says:

On FIrefox version 22.0 this extension is no longer working. I find the list view and the ability to resize the width so useful that without this script RTM is a much poorer application. Anyone else having this problem?

Reply to What to bring for the day ("Bring" tag w/ reminders)

emily (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi racheocity,

Great tip! You're this week's Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner, and we've added a free year of Remember The Milk Pro to your account. :)

Reply to Pin to task bar

jamesr404 (Pro) says:

Hey! I like that, it's pretty :-) And nice to always have my RTM cow mascot in view. Key to doing your todo list is having a visible todo list, so thanks for the tip!

Reply to Importing a ton of tasks from Astrid

sherry_zhou_98 (Pro) says:

Ah, glad you figured it out! Sorry I didn't respond sooner, but happy to help. Realized in retrospect probably should have uploaded some pictures for illustration.

Reply to Importing a ton of tasks from Astrid

pancho1 (Pro) says:

figured it out!! thank you!!! this was fantastic!! just one comment..in the formula for the excel table the " symbol should only be at the end of the formula with the = sign at the beginning. sherry.... you saved me a lot of grief THANK YOU!!!

Reply to Importing a ton of tasks from Astrid

pancho1 (Pro) says:

sherry_Zhou_98...just like you I have 100's of tasks in Astrid. I tried to follow your method here but I am too slow..

3 ...."insert formula in a new column...where exactly in the spreadsheet and how does that connect with the contents?

5. ....copy and paste "THAT COLUMN"...into the bulk adders...again...Which column are referring to...?

The column i pasted was the column with the formula (one single row)...and I just created that as a task in RTM...

Reply to Repeat after the next week day...

matthew.bassett (Pro) says:

Also discovered the following-- you can give more than 1 day name, e.g.:

Laundry *after monday, wednesday, friday

Or for something that needs to repeat every weekday, but not weekends, you can just say 'weekday'

Clean email inbox *after weekday

(discovered this one by accident when asking something to repeat after monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday and it was automatically converted to weekday for me...)

Keep track of college assignments

killerrobot007 says:

When I began my college fall semester, I had a bunch of papers due around the same time and I forgot about them until two nights beforehand. But in the spring semester, on the first day of classes, I entered every reading assignment, homework assignment, quiz, and exam into Remember the Milk. Then on the weekends, I looked at my week ahead and made sure I didn't have 2 papers due on the same day I had an exam.

I also synchronized RTM with my phone, which made it easy to change a due date in class if a professor pushed something back.

Reply to a simple now, sooner, later approach

emily (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi jlottosen,

Nice set up! I just wanted to let you know that you're this week's Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner. We've added a free year of Pro to your Remember The Milk account. :)

0ne Thing todo list

milkiglo (Pro) says:

“There’s only ever one thing on your to-do list.”

That's Leah Reich quoted from one of my favourite podcasts: 'Let's Make Mistakes'
http://www.muleradio.net/mistakes/82/

For my Remember the Milk setup I have created a couple of Smart Lists to keep my immediate todo list down to one thing. First, I identify the tasks that are due today without a specific time:

due:tod not dueAfter:tod12:00am

As I give those tasks specific times they drop from that Smart List. Then I head over to my '0ne Thing' Smart List. I use a zero for the first letter of 'one' to have the list filter to the top of my Smart Lists.

dueBefore:now

If there two or more tasks in this list I can pick which tasks to focus on later by changing their due times to a specific time such as '13:00' or '1pm'. Also, if I want to start something in ten minutes I simply type '10min' in the due field. Should something high priority comes up that I need to do at the moment which I also want to keep track I'll use the follow Smart Add due time.

Task Name ^now !1

This also helps to judge against whatever the one thing you were working on previously! Figuring out what the '0ne Thing' in the world I should be focused on is quick and straight forward using these two simple smart lists so that I can stay focused through out the day.

w00t!

Reply to Monitoring the number of sales calls to be made - Required functionality for goal tracking.

andrewski (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi stevem59,
You can track your completed tasks. You may wish to use tags to track these different statuses since those can be a bit more flexible.

Then, you could search your tasks for the past week like so:

completedWithin:"1 week of today" AND list:Work AND tag:spoke

Hope this helps!

Reply to My Trusted RTM/Gmail Life Management system using GTD and MYN principles (very long post)

biolaburman says:

I'm not experiencing a link back to gmail from RTM as per: : "is it something I need to action later on – “Star” it to make it a task and archive the email (the task will have a link back to the email)" I do not have a link back to the email within RTM. lemayp says :its in the gmail RTM Apps". Does this mean the Task list that appears to the right of the gmail browser superimposed OVER the browser (and therefore useless)? This is why I stopped using RTM tasks. I'd hoped this set-up addressed that, but it does not I guess. Any direction appreciated.

Thanks

Monitoring the number of sales calls to be made - Required functionality for goal tracking.

stevem59 says:

Hi

I have been recommended this software but can not quickly work out if it has certain functionality.

Hopefully someone on here will be kind enough to answer my questions.

My Problem.

I work for myself and one particular thing I would like to monitor is the number of new business sales calls I make.

I would like to know on a weekly basis

Whether or not I am making those calls, and how many.
The outcome of those calls.
For instance, I could try to call a company and may not be able to get through to anybody, or I may be given the persons details, or I could actually get through.

So it would be nice to monitor the activity and the outcome.

It does not matter what day of the week I make the calls, I just need to know that for a given week the number of calls I am making.

If I can not monitor the outcome then I guess I could set different goals as follows?

Call companies and get details.
Call companies no contact available
Call companies spoke to person

If I can monitor this then I can adjust the functionality to all sorts of uses, such as number of sales, number of quotes and so on.

Can you please let me know if RTM software will let me achieve this.

If it does not and you know of another solution I would be very grateful.

Reply to Using RTM for Simple CRM

sunjana1 (Pro) says:

schnizzzla-

My clients were integrated into my Google contacts and Google calendar via a repeating "call cycle". I used the Google calendar invitation system to create the "appointment" and invite my client. I did that at the initial "due date" in RTM for 2 weeks out in my Google calendar.

For example - RTM tells me an audit is due for client ABC May 12, 2013. I search for client ABC in my calendar and my actual planned day to the area where client ABC is May 28, 2013. I changed the due date in RTM to the 14th - to match exactly 2 weeks ahead of time.

Then on the 14th, I would create the visit (event) and invite the contact. I would change the due date then to the 21st - 1 week prior. If I heard from them in the meantime, confirming the 28th, I would go ahead and change the due date to the 27th or 28th (depending if I wanted to give them a reminder call the day before).

If didn't hear from them by the 21st, they would pop up again as due, and I would send a reminder email, and change the due date to the 27th.

Hope that helps!

Reply to Importing a ton of tasks from Astrid

sherry_zhou_98 (Pro) says:

Ooops, I incorrectly stated the shortcut for renaming stuff. It's actually the "r" key. Y is for adding a note. Blah.

Importing a ton of tasks from Astrid

sherry_zhou_98 (Pro) says:

I'm a new Remember the Milk convert and was using Astrid avidly before this. When they announced their acquisition by Yahoo, I really wanted to switch to Remember the Milk, but didn't know how. While you can email in bulk lists to the RTM import email address (https://www.rememberthemilk.com/services/email/#import), that only allows 50 tasks per email, and I had 100+ tasks I wanted to import.

One work around is to use the bulk adder (http://files.alnorth.com/rtm/index.html). The rest of this post will be specific to Astrid importing.

1) To get a back up of your astrid tasks, go to http://astrid.com/home/export and select "Back up my data".

2) This should generate an email from astrid. In that email should be an attachement with a zip file that contains task.csv file. Open that file up with Excel.

3) Make the table into an Excel table (not necessary), and then in a new column, insert the formula "=[@Title]&IF(ISTEXT([@Description])=TRUE,": "&[@Description],)&" !"&[@Importance]&" #"&[@Lists]".

Alternatively, if you did not make your data into a table, insert the formula "=A2&IF(ISTEXT(Q2)=TRUE,": "&Q2,)&" !"&F2&" #"&P2". Now just copy and paste that column all the way down your list of tasks.

NOTE: your list includes completed tasks. If you do not want to import those (they're a pain), sort the "Completed on" column R and only copy and paste the tasks that don't have a date in that column.

4) Now head over to RTM and make all the lists you had in Astrid, keeping the exact same spelling. You can rename them later after you've imported everything by going to "Settings>Lists>selecting the list and pressing the "y" shortcut"

5) Make sure none of the tasks have very long descriptions or weird symbols, this can cause the process to hang. If they don't, then copy and paste that column into the bulk adder's list (once again: http://files.alnorth.com/rtm/index.html) and click "Send to RTM". The button should turn gray. Once the button un-grays itself, all your tasks should have been imported.

Optional: If you have notes in your Astrid tasks, they need to be added manually. Just click through your most important tasks on Astrid, copy and paste them into the tasks in RTM. Sorry, I couldn't figure out an easier way to do this. The shortcut to add a note is "y" if that helps.

Hope this helps! It took me a while to figure out how to do the import, but once I figured it out, it was really quick to switch over to RTM. Hopefully this will cut down the work for some of you.

Repeat after the next week day...

matthew.bassett (Pro) says:

I recently discovered that you can give a day name when specifying 'after' for repeat, for example:

Vacuum *after sunday

The effect of this is that regardless of when you complete the task, it will next be scheduled for the next available sunday.

I use this to maintain my housework routine. For example: I have a task to remind me to vacuum the house every Sunday, but I am not always there at the weekend so sometimes end up vacuuming later in the week-- but when I complete the task I want it to go to the next available Sunday, and not to 1 week after I complete it (which could be any day of the week).

Pin to task bar

muzzamo (Pro) says:

You can use chrome to pin rtm to the windows7/8 task bar.

I find this extremely useful, so that it has its own window and doesn't get buried in all the noise and multiple tabs of my web browsers. I can also have very quick access to it since my windows task bar is always visible.

To do this, open rtm in chrome and then click the "menu" icon (three horizontal bars, top right of screen), tools, application shortcuts, pin to taskbar.

Reply to Milkman: Remember The Milk for Windows Phone

mikejd30 (Pro) says:

yes.... but not everyone wants this in an app. Of course, I think it's clear we can trust this app, but there is a growing concern (from what I see in reviews) about how many apps are requiring such things.

Perhaps the fault is also with Windows for not making this optional (so you can accept it or not but still use the basic app).

Reply to Different Kinds of Due Dates

emily (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi rksnh6,

Very nice use of tagging! You're this week's Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner, so we've added a free year of Pro to your Remember The Milk account. :)

Reply to Milkman: Remember The Milk for Windows Phone

jari.aarnio says:

Hi mikejd30.

Actually there is a reason for location requests.
Milkman can show you tasks that has Location-info near your current location.

Reply to Limits for importing taks via email

mikejd30 (Pro) says:

Just to note (can't help, sorry) but this would be better posted in the Help forum, both for you and the tidyness of the forum.

Reply to Search in Notes

brendan (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi fcastell,
By default, the contents of notes will not be searched. However, you can search notes by using the noteContains search operator. For example, if you're looking for serial number 123456, you could search for:

noteContains:"123456"

Hope this helps!

Reply to Limits for importing taks via email

brendan (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi fcastell,
There is a limit of 50 tasks per email when you're adding tasks using the Import Email Address.

Unfortunately it's not currently possible to work around this limit. Breaking up the tasks into multiple email messages is the only option. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Reply to Sync

brendan (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi bob7088,
Yes, all of your devices will be able to sync together! In either of the mobile apps, you can initiate a sync by tapping on the Sync icon in the lower left corner. This will transfer changes between the mobile app and the web app where you can see them on your computer.

Hope that helps! If syncing isn't working for you, please let us know.

Reply to Milkman: Remember The Milk for Windows Phone

mikejd30 (Pro) says:

Good to see the developer made a thread here. Actually, I was going to download but didn't because the app requests Location. I don't really know why it needs this information so I didn't download it (Windows Apps are suffering due to the many requirements some apps are asking for, especially when there is no obvious reason for needing the info).

If you remove this requirement, I think you'll get a lot more downloaders.

Sync

bob7088 says:

I'm currently running rtm on I-pad and android phone, I've just installed it on my Windows computer. Can I sync these all together? If so, how?
Thanks in advance.

Reply to Tips: Useful searches

thomas.kerstens (Pro) says:

Hi, I would like to create a list of my incompleted tasks for the last week. How do I do that? I tried dueBefore:today AND dueAfter:"-1 week of now" but this doesn't wok. Can we use past periods at all?

Thanks - Thomas

An (sort of) Automatic Priority System using Smart Lists

mikejd30 (Pro) says:

First off..... this is still something I am testing, so if it doesn't fully work I think it has the potential to work.

I'm more into Covey's idea of a matrix of what actually should be done first based on how important and also urgent a task is. However, my job needs a finer degree of prioritisation.

I saw the need for 6 levels of priority, based on the impact a task might have, its urgency and due date. Of course, what is not urgent one day may become urgent the next due to the due date. This aspect I wanted to make automatic.

I use 'impact' rather than importance because that relates better to what I do, as the impact of a task on the company is what defines its importance for me. So I think more in terms of high or low impact when considering tasks.

This uses 6 smart lists, Priority 1 - Priority 6 (for lack of more inventive names). This may start sounding complicated, but bear with me!

Also, one other thing I wanted was to be able to see the Priority smart lists on Saturday or Sunday, but that show as if it was Monday (because I like to get a view at the weekend of Monday will be like).

What follows is the 'code' for the 6 smart lists, and the tags that are needed to make them work.

First the tags (keeping real word meaning): highimpact, lowimpact, noturgent, soonerthebetter

(i didn't add 'urgent' as a tag because without 'noturgent', it is considered urgent)

Also, some of my tasks have due dates, some do not. Those without needed clarifying as to whether they were urgent things (like feedback on a project that wasn't requested, but would be useless if not done soon).

Now the smart lists. These follow my own formula for what defines the ultimate priority, and this is a little complex. The basics of it are, highimpact and due that day is Priority 1, lowimpact and due that day is Priority 2, highimpact and due within 3 days Priority 3, etc.

Smart list code as follows:

Priority 1: status:incomplete AND (dueBefore:tomorrow OR dueBefore:Tuesday) tag:highimpact

Priority 2: status:incomplete AND (dueBefore:tomorrow OR dueBefore:Tuesday) AND tag:lowimpact

Priority 3: status:incomplete AND (((dueWithin:"3 days of today" OR dueWithin:"3 days of Monday") AND tag:highimpact) OR ((tag:highimpact AND tag:soonerthebetter) OR (tag:highimpact AND NOT tag:noturgent AND due:never))) AND NOT (dueBefore:"1 day of today" OR dueWithin:"1 day of Monday")

Priority 4: status:incomplete AND (((dueWithin:"5 days of today" OR dueWithin:"5 days of Monday") AND tag:highimpact) OR ((tag:lowimpact AND tag:soonerthebetter) OR (tag:lowimpact AND NOT tag:noturgent AND due:never))) AND NOT (dueBefore:"3 days of today" OR dueWithin:"3 days of Monday")

Priority 5: status:incomplete AND (((dueWithin:"3 days of today" OR dueWithin:"3 days of Monday") AND tag:lowimpact) OR ((tag:highimpact AND tag:noturgent) OR (tag:highimpact AND NOT tag:soonerthebetter AND due:never))) AND NOT (dueBefore:"1 days of today" OR dueWithin:"1 days of Monday")

Priority 6: status:incomplete AND (((dueWithin:"5 days of today" OR dueWithin:"5 days of Monday") AND tag:lowimpact) OR ((tag:lowimpact AND tag:noturgent) OR (tag:lowimpact AND NOT tag:soonerthebetter AND due:never))) AND NOT (dueBefore:"3 days of today" OR dueWithin:"3 days of Monday")

Not sure how complicated this all sounds, but I'm hoping some of you will be interested in giving this a try. If nothing else, it highlights some of the power of smart lists :)

Reply to Don't Miss A Deal

mikejd30 (Pro) says:

I'm not sure you save money..... but you will definitely eat more tacos! :)

Reply to Using RTM priority to model Covey's qudrants

mikejd30 (Pro) says:

This slightly misses the point of Covey's approach though I think. As I understand it, for example Important and Urgent are treated as two separate task identifiers.

So you might assign a new task as Important, and then after decide is it Urgent or not. The Importance is unlikely to change, but the Urgency might. If you use 4 priorities, the way of thinking is different as you are simply given a 1-4 level (not letting the matrix decide based on what you considered Important in one moment and perhaps Urgent or Not urgent in another.

I hope I'm making sense here.......... The point is, most task system have priorities. But there is a different between that and what Covey suggests.

Therefore, I say using 4 separate tags would be a better approach, therefore being able to choose first what is important and after what may be urgent or not.

Search in Notes

fcastell (Pro) says:

I need to crate a smart list based on some serial numbers I put into notes. When I try to search, nothing comes as a result. Am I right to say there is a limitation that when searching for tasks the notes of the tasks are not considered? Thanks.

Limits for importing taks via email

fcastell (Pro) says:

Hi. I browsed the forum and found a similar question that does not solved the problem. I need to import long lists via email (about 200 tasks) on regular basis. Today there is a limit for 100 messages (or 50 messages sometimes). Is there any way to import this messages execpt sending several emails?
Thanks, Fabiano.

Quick and easy reminder

nodonovan (Pro) says:

When I'm at work I often contact someone by phone or email and need a simple way to make a note to see if I've heard back from them in 1, 2 or 4 weeks time. I have set up Smart Lists simply called 1 WEEK 2 WEEKS and 4 WEEKS using the search:

list:Work AND tag:waiting AND due:"1 week" (or 2 weeks etc).

All I then have to do is enter a new task in the appropriate task list and job done. To view all the tasks I am waiting on, I just look in my 'waiting' tag list.

See only what you want to see when you want to see it...

clziegler (Pro) says:

I really LOVE the fact that smart lists can be created to show EXACTLY what you want to see -- no more and no less.

I do our household finances at home on Tuesday nights.

I have a smart list that lists all the tasks that are due today @home. I also have a smart list that lists all the tasks that are related to finances on a separate smart list.

It really, really, really drove me nuts to see the finances tasks on my @home list because I only needed to see them when I sat down to actually DO finances. And when I sat down to DO finances, I didn't want to get distracted by all the OTHER things I needed to do.

I also recently added a life insurance list which I also wanted to show up on the finances list but NOT on the @home list.

I had a hard time nailing down the syntax to get exactly what I wanted -- so I used the chat now feature (my current web favorite feature) -- and Brendan helped me nail it down.

I share my two lists because I think they really showcase just what you can do.

I'll warn you -- the syntax is pretty organic -- I just kept shoving things on the end as I clarified what I wanted to see. There is probably a much more elegant way to phrase them... but again I think that highlights the beauty of RTM.

Here is my Today @home list syntax:

(list:NEXT_ACTION and location:@home ) or (tag:monthend and dueWithin:"3 days of today" and location:@home) or (dueBefore:tomorrow or tag:Next) and location:@home and NOT list:finances and NOT list:"s_life ins"

Here is my Finances this week syntax:

due:never or (tag:monthend and dueWithin:"3 days of today") or (dueWithin:"1 week of today") or and location:@home and (list:finances or list:"s_life ins")

Brendan, I will bless your name every Tuesday night for many years to come!

Reply to Add to RTM via Drafts on iOS

jonlee317 (Pro) says:

Looks like Drafts fixed the bug for the email actions. So, now you can use email actions to send to RTM. ^.^

Reply to Don't Miss A Deal

radmoose (Pro) says:

Thanks! =) I <3 RTM and Fish Tacos! (and today is Tuesday!)

Reply to Don't Miss A Deal

emily (Remember The Milk) says:

Mmm, tacos! Great tip. :)

You're this week's Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner, so we've added a free year of Pro to your Remember The Milk account.

Reply to Using the iOS Drafts App to Add RTM Tasks

jonlee317 (Pro) says:

As I was posting in the wrong forum (the Help Forum):

You can set up your iOS default reminders as RTM via the Add to SIRI method.

This way, when you use the drafts app, you can simply type your task and add to reminders! Your task will magically appear in the RTM inbox! =)

But too bad it doesn't seem to support Smart Add Syntax! =\

Reply to Add to RTM via Drafts on iOS

jonlee317 (Pro) says:

i posted on the wrong forum. -.-

Add to RTM via Drafts on iOS

jonlee317 (Pro) says:

Not sure if anyone else has done this yet, but I thought it was cool to use the Drafts app to add to RTM.

If you already set up RTM to add tasks via SIRI, then you should already have default reminders set to: "Remember the Milk"

Therefore, with the drafts app, all you have to do is type your thought and select add to reminders (which is now being routed to your RTM inbox).

1) Tap Drafts App
2) Type "Hello RTM!"
3) Tap Share button
4) Tap "Reminders"

Viola! With four easy steps, your task (Hello RTM!) magically appears in the inbox! So now you can just keep adding new tasks or ideas to your inbox quickly with no distractions! You can file them later at your next convenient time!

One Problem is that it does not seem to support smart add notation. sniffles T.T

NOTE: If you don't want to use the reminders route to add tasks. I think you should be set up the Drafts email actions to send an email to RTM. But I think that Drafts has some issue with this because when I send the task, it only appears in the body and not the subject (So, this because a good way to send notes with no task name if you ever wanted to do that). But anyway, supposedly you can make the email subject become the first line of your draft but it doesn't work for me. But that's a different issue and unrelated to RTM. =)

In summary, this was just a quick random thought for those who have the Drafts app for iOS and wants to quickly add tasks to our good friend RTM! =)

Reply to Travel Checklist

casutton (Pro) says:

Duplication *limit* I meant to say

Reply to Travel Checklist

casutton (Pro) says:

The way that I get around the duplication method is to use the same RtM list every time and uncomplete all of the items before each trip.

Reply to My Trusted RTM/Gmail Life Management system using GTD and MYN principles (very long post)

shekala (Pro) says:

Linking to Evernote is wonderful. Unfortunately, it doesn't work from the Gmail addon. I have asked RTM to fix this for the last couple of years, but they have yet to do so. It's a shame since I rely exclusively on the Gmail add on.

Kickstarter

rainier.madruga (Pro) says:

As a semi-avid Kickstarter backer, I wanted to stay on top of my pledges. Both those I am pending to pay, and those I am awaiting delivery of... So obviously I am down to my favorite Task Manager to help me remember!!!

First, all items end up tagged as #kickstarter on my list.

Then to help me decide between funding and delivery, I tag the same entries either #funded to determine that I want to fund them; or then deliver with the estimated delivery date to mark down when I should expect them to be delivered.

Obviously, not all Kickstarters deliver on time, but at least this way you know when to expect them at the mailbox!

Good Luck and Happy Funding!

How to send a daily weather forecast to RTM to help schedule outdoor tasks

pachela says:

I was reading this thread about possible RTM and IFTTT integration and thought I'd share a way I'm currently using IFTTT to help with my daily RTM decision making.

Last summer my problem looked like this: I would decide not to mow the lawn because it didn't really need it yet, but I had missed the weather forecast that would have warned me that it was going to rains for days. By the time I was able to mow, a brand new ecosystem had taken hold. For whatever reason, I just couldn't seem to get in the habit of checking the weather forecast every day.

This year's solution: I set up an IFTTT "recipe" so that it's Weather channel triggers an action every morning at 6:30am. The action is to send an email (via gmail, another IFTTT channel) to my RTM inbox. I formatted the subject line of the email like a RTM Smart Add. It looks like this (everything in the dbl brackets is provided by IFTTT's Weather trigger.):

**Forecast today: {{TodaysCondition}}. Temp {{LowTempFahrenheit}}°F to {{HighTempFahrenheit}}°F. Pollen count: {{PollenCount}} ^today #*mylist #mytags !1 http://m.weather.com/10day/myzipcode

I also formatted the body of the email with additional weather information supplied by the IFTTT Weather channel (humidity, UV index, more).

Every morning this appears as a task on my Today smart list. Because I set priority to 1, it sorts to the top and I can see today's forecast at a glance or click on the url for the 10 day forecast. Now I know if I can safely postpone any weather dependent tasks. The pollen count tells me if it's going to be a bad day for allergies (and I might want to increase my allergy meds before I mow that lawn).

Once I've referenced the forecast, I just delete it, but I can imagine some folks might want to mark it as complete and maintain a daily log of weather data.

Reply to My Trusted RTM/Gmail Life Management system using GTD and MYN principles (very long post)

lemayp (Pro) says:

Oh! I just found what you referred to. The information about the original email is only available from the gmail RTM Apps, not from RTM web site, and is represented by a little email icon.

Nice trick. I will try it for few days and see if I like it.

Thanks for sharing.

Reply to My Trusted RTM/Gmail Life Management system using GTD and MYN principles (very long post)

lemayp (Pro) says:

Hi Martin,

Really like your description of how you are working, looks like I am at mid-way from you since I already use several technics that you are describing. And I am using several of the products you are using too: RTM, gmail, evernote...

You are using the RTM app for gmail in an interesting way and I remember having abandoned using it a long time ago. I am revisiting it to see if I would like to convert actionable emails as task inside of RTM. But there is something that doesn't work the way you are describing it in my environment. Once I have starred an email (or assigned a pre-configured tag) I can see the task created in RTM based on the email title, but you seem to pretend that the task will also have the link to the original email. I don't get such link in any of the attributes of the newly created task. Is there a special settings that I might have overlooked? Where should I expect to see this, in the URL field?

Maybe it is because I am using a chromebook and something in the behaviour differs from it?

Let me know if you remember a special setting to have the URL of the original email inside of the RTM task.

Reply to My Trusted RTM/Gmail Life Management system using GTD and MYN principles (very long post)

emily (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi martingchapman,

Thanks for sharing your system! You're this week's Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner, so we've upgraded your Remember The Milk account with a free year of Pro. :)

Reply to Milkman: Remember The Milk for Windows Phone

jmegert (Pro) says:

Just started using RTM heavily after trying it out years ago. Work off all platforms (Windows, Windows Phone, Android and iOS). Milkman is a great interface to RTM. Very happy with it so far. I do see some ideas for it though and I will pass them along soon.

Reply to Checklist where to you the same set of tasks to each item

brendan (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi theegooch,
One way to do this may be to use something similar to a travel checklist.

For each part, you could duplicate the necessary steps and then tag them all at once so you know which part they belong to.

Hope this helps!

Reply to Avoiding endless postponing of tasks that have soft due dates

emily (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi kokuran,

Nice use of Smart Lists! You're this week's Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner, so we've upgraded your Remember The Milk account with a free year of Pro. :)

Better sorting

judykator (Pro) says:

I'm using the RTM at work. Daily I have to do quite a lot tasks: 20-40. Tasks have different piorytety and different minimum execution time. As you know, unfortunately, RTM can sort the tasks in the list only by one criterion (This could be improved?). I got the idea to improve sorting: so that the top of the list to have a job for today - a task quick to implement. At the beginning of the name of each task I use “..” for tasks that can be completed in a maximum of 5 minutes or “_”for tasks that can be completed in a maximum of 15 minutes. For example: “.. name of task very short” or “_ name of task short”.
I use sorting “due:”. As a result, I have within a day: task with the highest priority at the top of the list, and within one of the highest priority tasks on the list are the shortest. This allows you to first perform the tasks simple and quick.

In addition, use Smart List “Short tasks for today and tommorow” (location:work AND (due:today OR due:tommorow) AND (name:.. OR name:_)

But I would like to sort tasks in the future was made possible by more than one criterion. In particular, I would like to sort by the number of postpone task. The tasks most frequently postpone - at the top of day list.
Please 

Checklist where to you the same set of tasks to each item

theegooch (Pro) says:

I think it's called the factory model, where you have a set of items and perform several operations on each item, like say you have some car parts, you cut them, buff them, and the coat them with a sealant.

Let say I have 20 parts and need to do those things to each one.

What would be a good app of keeping track of each item and how far along I am with completing the tasks on each one?

Can I do this with RTM?

Reply to Share Your Smart Lists and Your Tags -- Your RTM "System"

echarles (Pro) says:

Zombie thread rises from the grave! But why not see how everyone is using RTM now in 2013?

I tend to go back and forth a bit, sometimes deciding I want everything on one big list, other times wanting a list for every project. At the minute I'm sort of in the middle.

I'm a writer, with a day job. I tend to have several writing projects going on at any one time, in different stages. RTM not only keeps me on track with them, it remembers all the other boring chores and errands I have to do, so I don't have to think about them and can get on with thinking about writing stuff instead.

My lists:
Inbox. I don't keep stuff in here. And I rarely mail tasks in. I tend to use it more as a temporary working area, especially if I have several tasks to set up, and especially if they all have the same attributes. I'd just type in the task names to Smart Add, hit enter, type the next one, etc. Then when I've done them all, go and apply due dates, tags, etc en mass and finally move them to the list they belong on.

Work - For day job stuff.

Writing - all writing tasks go in here. This list might contain quite a few tasks that don't have due dates yet, for tasks to do later. I distinguish between projects using tags #proj-name, so I can do a search on everything for that one when I need to. Lots of writing tasks take many days to complete, so they will often have repeats on them. Like drafting a novel, the task will have a daily repeat on it until I get to the end. The day I finish I take the repeat off the task and tick it as complete for that day.

Promo - all tasks that could be classed as that promotion stuff we writers have to do. Blogging mostly in here. All tasks in here will likely be dated. Some will be repeating, like for my weekly blog post, but many will be one offs.

Goals - My goals for the year, tagged #yearly and with a due date of the end of the year and for this month tagged #monthly, with a due date of the end of the month.

Misc - anything else, chores, errands, bookings, weekly and monthly reviews, anything that doesn't fit on any other lists basically. Pretty much everything on here would be dated and many would be recurring tasks.

I also have a couple of what I think of a reusable lists, which are usually archived. For instance there's tasks for when I have a book release. I have to do those same tasks each time. So I unarchive the list, tick them off as I do them, then once they are all done for that release, I uncomplete the tasks and archive the list again for next time. Also have ones for packing for travelling, and for Christmas gifts and cards.

Locations, I use 4, which are quite generalised. @home @work @local @citycentre. The vast majority of my tasks will be done in those places. (The work one also covers the local area around where I work.)

Smartlists:
All my smart lists are date based. I have:
Today - due:today or dueBefore:today
Tomorrow - due:tomorrow
Today and Tomorrow due:today or dueBefore:today or due:tomorrow
(I use that list for the gadget in Gmail and for a widget on my tablet.)
Week ahead - dueWithin:"8 days of today" and not due:Today and not list:work
Week ahead is one I use specifically for when I do my weekly review, which is primarily about my writing progress. So I want to see what's ahead for the next week (excluding today and excluding day job stuff.)

Reply to Share Your Smart Lists and Your Tags -- Your RTM "System"

adamt8 says:

New to RTM. Believe it or not, just trying to organize repeating grocery list for a large family with smart phones. We think we can cut our shopping time in half. :)

Reply to Request credit line increases regularly

peter.jewell (Pro) says:

Wow, thank you, Emily. Never thought I'd be on Tips & Tricks!

Reply to Reusable/Packing Lists

rajjan (Pro) says:

Didn't pay enough attention to this when it was originally posted, great idea, works perfectly right away. Well worth the Tip of the Week!

Reply to Request credit line increases regularly

emily (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi Peter,

Agreed that reviewing is a good idea -- I thought this was worth sharing, so I hope you don't mind that I've updated the blog post with your note (and given you some Pro, too :).

Reply to Request credit line increases regularly

peter.jewell (Pro) says:

Oooo, this rang alarm bells.

May I humbly suggest a safer use for this is to remind you to REVIEW your credit cards at regular intervals. Then you can decide whether you can AFFORD to increase your credit limit, or whether instead you should be REDUCING it.

You CAN ask your provider to lower your credit limit -- it's not a one-way process -- and this should improve your credit rating and make you less likely to get into problem debt.

Reply to Request credit line increases regularly

emily (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi Molly,

Just wanted to let you know that you're our Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner this week, and we've added a free year of Pro to your Remember The Milk account. :) Thanks for sharing your tip!

Reply to Milkman: Remember The Milk for Windows Phone

jari.aarnio says:

Milkman is really great, thanks Matt.

As Richard in the previous post told, there are some problems with Smart Lists.
I have tried to implement GTD/ZTD-system like this:

http://www.critical-mass.cz/2011/remember-gtd-eng

On Milkman, the most critical Smart list (!Next_Actions) shows zero tasks.

The smartlist-search is a complicated one, like this
tag:.na AND NOT tag:.maybe AND (dueBefore:"2 days of today" OR due:never) AND NOT ((isRepeating:true AND tag:routine) AND NOT dueBefore:tomorrow)

Also .DailyRev (completed:today) and .Weekrev (completedWithin:"1 week of today") -lists shows zero tasks.

Has it something to do with smartlists having some kind of day-limits?

Lumia 900 (OS 7.8)

RTM and Speak Here Now! (And now the joy of hands-free "task collecting".)

alfred74new (Pro) says:

Phone Stats:
Carrier: Verizon
Phone Model: Motorola Droid M
Operating System: Android 4.1.1

When I started using RTM I also began using the android app Speak Here Now!. So far I have been very happy with it. There was a recent update for Speak Here Now, which adds the capability to add a "tag" and a priority to the item. I have found adding a priority works well, but that adding a tag is problematic. Its speech recognition of tag words is not quite good enough. Nonetheless it's nice to have the option to try.

It is still early in my development of my RTM/GTD system, however I am leaning towards having a lot of tags and less lists. Originally I had hoped to keep almost everything in my inbox, which is my default list. Since Speak Here Now! sends all items to your default list, I have begun finding it a little tricky to find the tasks that I have added this way. Because of this I just moved all of my "work related" tasks to the existing work list. Now when I look in my inbox I know that everything needs processing, and it is very satisfying to have an empty inbox at times.

In reading the documentation on Speak Here Now I discovered that you can give it a default "command" (the app works with a number of other apps). The command for it to work with RTM is "Remember". Once you set remember as the default command, instead of having to say "remember--call the monkey" you only have to say "call monkey". I find that this slightly less embarrassing when doing this in public.

The system voice recognition program, in my version of android, is called Voice Commands. This particular app does not appear to be available through the App Store. It's voice recognition abilities are actually quite good. And to my great joy, that I can activate Voice Commands and say "start speak here now" and in fact speak here now starts and I can add a task to my system. My testing so far has been holding and talking into the phone. However my Bluetooth headsets have a MTF button, that when I press it opens Voice Commands by default. My hope is that the voice recognition system will be good enough that I can add tasks via my Bluetooth headset and have truly the ability to safely and thoroughly capture thoughts and tasks as they occur to me while driving. Because I hope to capture copious quantities of tasks on the fly, I made the decision to move my work tasks to to a static list.

RTM and Rainlender

alfred74new (Pro) says:

I have been using RTM for about 3 weeks. It's a great program, but I have found myself missing being able to drag and drop my tasks in some type of daily calendar view. Prior to RTM I put my tasks into my Google calendar with an arbitrary start time, basically to act as a placeholder, and then in my planning process rearranged them into the order I wanted to do them. In the form I have noticed a lot of discussion about not being able to do drag and drop organization and not having a calendar view.
Last night (and this afternoon) I spent too much time exploring Rainlender. I had added it a few days ago however had found it frustrating and not very helpful. Last night I really dove in and have found some uses and limitations of it in relationship to RTM.
In the 3rd party app section of the RTM help page there's a listing for Rainlender- http://www.rainlendar.net/cms/index.php-which says "Rainlendar is a calendar application which is highly customizable, and helps keep your events and tasks in plain view on your desktop at all times."
I will try and give some simple lists of information that I have learned about Rainlender.

General items
1. there is a Rainlender Lite version and a Rainlender2 pro-version.
2. Only the Rainlender2 pro integrates with RTM.
3. There is unlimited trial use of the full Pro program, however all tasks have the word unregistered at the beginning. The one time purchase price is 9.95 (euro).
4. All items below refer to the Rainlender Pro version

Connectivity
1. Rainlender can read and write to your Google calendar.
2. If your Google calendar reads your RTM feeds, you can add these subscribed calendars to Rainlender as well. However, Rainlender cannot write to these feeds.
3. Rainlender can read and write to what they refer to as your RTM calendar (ical). Enabling this calendar brings in tasks from all smart and static lists, that have due dates and times. You can also add individual RTM lists (smart lists too)as calendar or event feeds to Rainlender. I did discover today however that you cannot write back to a smart list.

Tricky parts
1. When you add a calendar feed to Rainlender, it is not automatically set up to poll the calendar-in the settings area you have to scroll down to find the setting.
2. The user interface is based on using skins. The program comes with 3 included in you can choose views from each of them in combine them and use duplicates. This means you can have 2 week views (they would be in separate windows) and have one open to this week and the other open to next week.
3. You can open and edit RTM tasks in Rainlender. Say you have an RTM task set for 2 PM today, meaning that you want to started at 2 o'clock and work on it for an hour. If you open the task in Rainlender and give it a start time of 2 PM and they due time of 3 PM, when Raymond writes it back to the RTM system the due time in RTM is moved back to 3 PM. This would make sense if RTM had start and due times, however if you're used to setting the due time as the actual start time for the day this doesn't work.

What works and what doesn't
1. Rainlender does read and write to your Google calendar and to your RTM lists.
2. There is a lot of customization available for both calendar views and what calendar items that view shows.
3. Tasks with a due date, but not a due time, are not pulled into Rainlender, except in the manager window.
4. Tasks are shown in calendar views as a bar with no description. When you mouse over the bar you have the option of moving it or just seeing the description or double-clicking and opening it to edit.
5. Since my primary purpose for investigating this was to allow drag-and-drop editing, it's usefulness is up in the air for me. For example tomorrow I have 10 items with due times, and they are showing up in my week view Rainlender, but since they are only shown as bars I can't tell which is which without mousing over each of them. You can drag and drop to rearrange them, or even move them to another day, but since you can't see all the task descriptions at once, I find it a little dicey.

I have posted in the support form and sent an email to the developer asking if there's a way to get task titles to show up in the calendar views. I'll let you know what I find out.

Reply to Evernote integration DIY

jlwconsult (Pro) says:

This info is exactly what I was looking for.

I've also been trying to separate my work into the "4 Quadrants" of Steven Covey.

Being more rigorous in prioritizing my tasks in RTM seems to work well for that:

!1 = Quadrant 1
!2 = Quadrant 2
!3 = Quadrant 3
no priority = Quadrant 4

This doesn't give me the visual Quadrant layout, but it gets me close enough!

Thanks, all , for sharing the knowledge!

Jim

Facebook reminders

dougbrown77 says:

I receive many messages and Facebook posts and have struggled with remembering to respond in a timely fashion. REmember the Milk gmail addon has helped me solve the problem.

I set Facebook to notify me of messages and posts via my gmail account.

I configure a search/smart list to find the word "facebook" in the subject line.

I setup gmail addon on to work in my chrome browser.

Then as I work in gmail I star messages that come in from Facebook that I want to followup on. At that point I can assign due dates, tags etc.

If I want to concentrate on Facebook messages I can set the task view to the smart list "facebook".

When i am ready to respond to the post or email I can click on the portion of the email that says "view this message/post on the web"

Thanks RTM!

Reply to Using the iOS Drafts App to Add RTM Tasks

arunaugustine (Pro) says:

hopefully we can collectively pressure drafts to integrate RTM :)

Reply to Evernote integration DIY

rolandschupp (Pro) says:

Great little hint, thank you a lot!

Reply to Reusable/Packing Lists

jelykins (Pro) says:

Another vote for Tuesday. Fantastic, thanks!

Reply to Using the iOS Drafts App to Add RTM Tasks

bonwag (Pro) says:

Nice one, toddb - that's a much better option, and it works well 'offline'. I'm swapping my method for yours (at least until RTM gets the x-callback-URL support it desperately needs :) )

Reply to Awesome! Special characters in RTM √

alfred74new (Pro) says:

For your Windows computer there is a scripting program that lets you temporarily redefine what a key sends. My estimating program uses a comma as the separator for feet & inches (i.e. 4,5 vs 4-5 or 4'5"). Since there is no comma on the keypad, when I am estimating, I run a script that changes the "/" on the keypad to a ",". This is a great time saver. You can suspend the script to do other things (like entering a lot of dates) and then turn it back on.
The script program is available at http://www.autohotkey.com/
In the Window's start menu, search for "character map" and there are miilion special characters available such as = ± € © Ñ ® ÿ ¥ ȼ.
You probably could get auto hotkey to "point" to these too.
On my Android phone I use the Swift Key keyboard. The keyboard has easy access to numbers & some symbols. On the number pad there is a button for another keyboard of just symbols. With Swift Key's really good predictive typing, after you enter a tag or task with a funky lead character a couple of times, it will probably guess the tag as soon as you input the lead character.

Reply to The System: between RTM and GTD

emily (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi szemyed,

Thanks for sharing your post! You're this week's Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner, so we've upgraded your Remember The Milk account with a free year of Pro. :)

Reply to iPhone: use Launcher Center Pro templates to capture fast and easy

bonwag (Pro) says:

+1 - drafts integration via callback would make me a happy monkey

Reply to My GTD setup

jenbertotti says:

matthiask82,

Thank you SO MUCH for this post! I have been hunting for months for a system for GTD w/ RTM and the different ideas were daunting! I could never remember to add certain tags, or it just seemed to overwhelming. This is simple and perfect for me. GREAT post!

Reply to Reusable/Packing Lists

johnwin says:

Ignore the above ^

All working fine now I put in my 'import' email address instead of the 'task' email

Thanks for this great tool!

Reply to Reusable/Packing Lists

johnwin says:

Hey @moslus thanks for this script, unfortunately everything works apart from the fact that gmail does not sent the email! I authorised the sheet to use gmail but nothing happens. Thanks.

Reply to Using RTM for Simple CRM

schnizzzla (Pro) says:

Hey Sunjana1,

thanks for sharing your technique :)

I'd be particularly interested how you set up Google Calendar part with the tasks beeing due earlier than in RTM.

What I am missing so far in RTM are different reminder settings for particular tasks and this might be a good workaround in my case.

Reply to How to sync RTM with Thunderbird?

ceodaboz (Pro) says:

Please make Bi-directional Sync add-on for Thunderbird.
+2

Reply to Using RTM for Simple CRM

emily (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi sunjana1,

Thanks for sharing your post! :) You're this week's Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner, so we've added a free year of Remember The Milk Pro to your account.

Using RTM priority to model Covey's qudrants

chris089 (Pro) says:

If you read on personal productivity, it's highly likely you've heard about Stephen Covey's four quadrant matrix as a tool for prioritizing your tasks. If not, here's the short summary:

For each task, decide if it is a) important or not and b) urgent or not. Draw four quadrants on a piece of paper and put everything that's important and urgent in the first, important but not urgent in the second and so on. Covey argues we are likely to neglect those tasks that are important but not urgent, so remember to do them after the important and urgent ones.

Today it occurred to me, that this can perfectly modeled using the priority feature of remember the milk - it has exactly four states (1 / red ,2 / dark blue ,3 / light blue and 0 / white). Until today I just used my gut feeling to prioritize my tasks, but I will now decide using a well-known system: For each task I ask Covey's questions and assign priorities accordingly. This will ensure that I will not neglect the tasks from quadrant #2 as RTM will order them above #3 tasks.

Reply to Contexts

katiebateman (Pro) says:

That should read RTM, not RMT (Registered Massage Therapist) :)

Contexts

katiebateman (Pro) says:

Similarly to locations, I use contexts in RMT to keep track of what to do when I'm in different locations or doing different things. I use the tags @home, @laptop, @lunch (to do during my lunch break), and @outabout (out and about, such as on the way home from work). I've got smart lists for tasks due today in each of those contexts. So when I'm on my lunch break I just check that list to see that I need to go to the post office, or when I sit down on the couch with my laptop I know I need to submit some health plan receipts. Little things like that which would otherwise get lost in a long list of random errands. It's a system that's been working well for me for a few years now.

Reply to Managing multiple checklists

jelykins (Pro) says:

I like this a very lot!

tagged but not catergorized in lists

poeminlash says:

I find it helpful by creating a list that searches for all un-tagged items.

e.g. Searched for: (status:incomplete) NOT (isTagged:true)

Since I focus mainly on lists, I create another smart list to find items that were tagged but not in my lists.

e.g. (tag:## OR tag:#) NOT (list:$$ OR list:$$$)

Reply to Tip for using RTM and tags

emily (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi lnussdor,

Nice use of tags! :) You're our Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner this week, so we've added a year of Pro to your Remember The Milk account.

Reply to Automate Gmail email to RTM task

cek1227 (Pro) says:

Great job. I've tweaked this a bit and love it.

Reply to Milk the Cow (another RTM Dashboard Widget for Mac OS X)

muiterz (Pro) says:

Hi, great work! I really like the daskboard widget, but I have a autorisation problem, when restarting my hackintosh. Do you have a solution?

Reply to Adding tasks from Powershell

emily (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi selan,

Thanks for sharing this -- you're this week's Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner. :) We've upgraded your Remember The Milk account with a year of Pro.

Reply to How to sync RTM with Thunderbird?

savas.yasar (Pro) says:

+1 It would be great if this was updated

Automate Gmail email to RTM task

jesse.heitler (Pro) says:

Here's a Google App Script to automate the creation of a RTM task from a Gmail email when you give it a label like 'rtm'.

The resulting task includes a link to the original email thread, and the author and subject in the task name. It can also create the task in a specific list.

Of course, the script is just javascript so you can easily customize it too.

http://blog.i-iterate.com/2013/03/11/automate-gmail-email-to-remember-the-milk-task/

I hope you find this helpful.

-Jesse

Reply to Separator for multiple items?

shifflav (Pro) says:

Thanks...I'll give that a try. A separator character of some sort would be a great addition to RTM's web and mobile apps. It's a great service and is serving me quite well.

Avoiding endless postponing of tasks that have soft due dates

kokuran (Pro) says:

I like to put a due date on everything except for "maybe someday tasks", but this creates a problem where I'm not sure what HAS to be done and what can wait a bit longer. And so I endlessly postpone or revise due dates to avoid the guilt of overdue tasks. To combat this, I combined my due dates with priorities:

Priority 1 is for HARD due dates: it really actually has to be done that day
Priority 2 is for SOFT due dates: it should get done that day, but it can wait a week or so
Priority 3 is Whenever: it would be best to be done within a month or so, but no rush.

I then postpone any of the priority 2-3 stuff that I don't get to on the day it's "due", and set up a Smart List that keeps track of tasks that have been postponed many times. After 10 postponements (priority 2) or 45 (priority 3), I upgrade the task's priority one level to force myself to get it done.

postponed: >10 AND priority:2
postponed: >45 AND priority:3

Reply to Separator for multiple items?

andrewski (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi shifflav,
This isn't currently possible using Smart Add in our web app or mobile apps, but you could do this by email, listing out tasks using your Import address.

Hope that helps somewhat!

Separator for multiple items?

shifflav (Pro) says:

Is there a special character that acts as a separator so I can add multiple tasks? For example, I have a grocery list. Right now I have to start a new task with each item I want to add. It would be nice to simply type something like: milk, bread, butter, cereal ...and have RTM separate them out as individual tasks.

Ideas?

Reply to Lighweight yet useful Issue tracking

brendan (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi krissa.swain,
You can use the "status" search operator to filter either incomplete or completed tasks:
status:incomplete
status:completed

Hope that helps!

Keeping track of produce

niemansj (Pro) says:

Moving to a big city has made fresh produce and meats much more available to me, but it's easy to forget about certain items and find them after they've gone bad. :(

To prevent this, I created a list called "Perishables".

Every time I get home from the store, I take a minute to create a task for each perishable item I bought.

The due date is set to the expiration date. Many fresh veggies don't come with a date, so I do a quick google search to determine the average shelf life and set it to one or two days before just to be safe.

I tag each item with its location in the fridge or the cabinet or the countertop, and I use the notes to include the link to any recipe I might be using it in. If there's ever a certain recipe I want to make quickly due to it involving things that will quickly go bad, I set it to high priority to bring it to the top of my list.

From here, I regularly check this list to make sure I'm choosing my meals while keeping expiration dates in mind. It's a very useful reference as the items are ordered by date which allows me to cook things in the right order and avoid forgetting about my produce!

<3 RTM!

Reply to Lighweight yet useful Issue tracking

krissa.swain (Pro) says:

Wait - when did "status" become a field? I missed something?

Reply to Lighweight yet useful Issue tracking

emily (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi cadetblue,

Great tip! You're this week's Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner, so we've added a free year of Pro to your Remember The Milk account. :)

Reply to Trim Milk - Windows Phone application

kai.yee says:

Can't wait for ver 1.3...I have been using Trim Milk for almost a year. Great app!

Managing multiple checklists

kai.yee says:

I reuse multiple checklists for a lot of tasks. Instead of managing and cluttering RTM with all these tasks that I need only for a certain occasion or job, I find it simpler and convenient to manage my master checklists as simple text files.

For example I have my master packing list kept in a text file called packing.txt, before packing for my trip, I would scan through the list, add/delete items to suit the trip if required. To import the checklist into RTM, first I create a new list in RTM called 'Packing'. Then I copy & paste the text from my packing list as the body of an email, with a subject called 'Packing', send it to my Import Email Address and magically my Packing List appears in RTM!

23 tips for RTM users

thinkinprojects (Pro) says:

Hello All,

I've been using RTM for 3 years now and find it one of the best task managers.
Over the last few months I've been writing about different experiences that I had and how I use this application on daily basis.
Few weeks ago I gathered and posted a list of 23 tips for any RTM user.
I would like to know what are other tips that people use to make the most out of RTM?

For those interested here is the link to my blog post:
http://creatingpersonalflow.com/blog/rtm-2/23-tips-for-a-remember-the-milk-user

Thanks

Reply to Borrowed / Lent list

b2m (Pro) says:

Last week I was searching for a new Android App to manage my borrowed and lend items... but I soon discovered that I already had a perfect App for this: RTM.

I soon learned, that I am not the first one to use RTM this way, but nonetheless I documented my setup in german and english on my Blog.

The basic difference: instead of tags for the names I am using the name as prefix and an alphabetical order for the list. Therefore I avoid having a lot of (maybe) later unused tags.

Reply to Milkman: Remember The Milk for Windows Phone

richard.spiller says:

Great app, Matt. Thanks for all the effort. I have noticed a couple of things related to smart lists that you may be able to help with or maybe you don't know about them.

1. I have a smart list that uses the timeEstimate as one of its search criteria. It works fine the RTM site but always shows 0 tasks in the app.
2. I have another smart list that uses dueWithin as a criteria. This behaves differently between the site and the app. If I use "dueWithin: 2 days", the site will show tasks due today or tomorrow but the app will show tasks due today, tomorrow or the next day. The way the app works is actually the way I would expect but what would really be nice is if they would both work the same way.

If these are things that can be fixed or you can shed some light on them that would be much appreciated.

Also, a suggestion that I think someone may have mentioned above. I think that the live tile display would be much more useful if it was always displaying some info about the pinned list. It isn't particularly useful as a live tile if I have to wait for it to flip over to find out what it is going to say. It would be a very handy at-a-glance tool if I could quickly see the list name, today: #, tomorrow: #, all: # or something like that.

Thanks again for all of your work.

Reply to Trim Milk - Windows Phone application

david.gladstone says:

Kim,

Sorry for the late reply - I don't check in that often. The app has been written to be localised/translated so that is something that you might be able to help with in future. The only bit of the app that will not translate well is the recurring task interface as it is based on an English sentence structure.

Feel free to keep up on developments on twitter - @TrimMilk and/or @davidgladstone.

David.

Reply to Using the iOS Drafts App to Add RTM Tasks

toddb (Pro) says:

You should try creating a Drafts email action and use your RTM email address. The first line of the Draft will be the task name. Leaving it at that would immediately send your task to your inbox. This would save you from having to log in to RTM.

Also, if you happen to use TextExpander on your iOS device you could also set up a snippet that pre-fills other pieces of the task, like due date, list name, priority, etc. For example I use a snippet called rtmt that looks like this:

%|
List: Personal
Due: today
Priority:

The %| places the cursor on the top line so you can just type in the name of the task and then hit the "Send to RTM" action.

Using the iOS Drafts App to Add RTM Tasks

bonwag (Pro) says:

Having recently acquired the excellent 'Drafts' app for my iDevices, I was hoping to find a 'Send to RTM' facility in there. In its absence, I've built one which I hope others find useful.

Drafts is a deceptively simple text entry app which fires up quickly and allows you to easily and quickly enter text. Its real power shines in its ability to then send that text to a surprisingly large number of iOS tools and Apps. It's a friction-free way of getting text into twitter, email, facebook, calendars, and a host of other tools from a single window.

Why use Drafts when you have a perfectly good, clean RTM client for entering tasks? I've found it's convenient to use Drafts when 'on the run' and to switch over to RTM when you have time to think.

Drafts has a URL-based API that allows you to click on the following link (or copy it into a mobile safari window) to add it to the Draft 'URL Actions' list. Then you can fire it up, type your task and 'Send to RTM'. (You do need to have recently logged in, and this opens up a pre-filled task window which you then submit - but it's a click or two less than using the official client'\)

drafts://x-callback-url/import_action?type=URL&name=RTM&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rememberthemilk.com%2Fservices%2Fext%2Faddtask.rtm%3Fd%3Dtoday%26t%3D%5B%5Bdraft%5D%5D

Interested to hear from fellow Drafters - it's a killer app!

Reply to Google Sites

andrewski (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi urummel,
It's not possible to embed Remember The Milk into another page, sorry.

You can link to a specific list in Remember The Milk, if that's of any help.

Reply to CC RTM in your e-mails

tomalexander19 (Pro) says:

My only issue with this is that I think it's weird to have your hashtags in your email subject, you know? So I end up having to go back in and re-organize after the initial email, which ends up negating some of the time saved.

Reply to Keeping Life and Work separate

emily (Remember The Milk) says:

HI breadbean,

Nice use of Smart Lists! You're this week's Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner, so we've added a free year of Pro to your Remember The Milk account. :)

Using RSS feeds to organize calls

tomalexander19 (Pro) says:

I have to make a lot of phone calls for my job -- which I hate doing. I find that it's easiest to knock them out one after another. So I use RTM to help.

Here's what I do:

I've got a tag for #phonecall and every time I get an email or remember that I need to make a call, I save it to RTM under this tag. (Call John Smith regarding electric vehicles 312.555.1212 #phonecall). I have an RSS feed set up, and I used a feed reader to automatically email me the complete RSS at previously set times during the day (I use blogtrottr) but there are a lot of them out there. I even use the "rules" feature on outlook to automatically print this email, so I have a clean copy.

Voila -- a call sheet! I'll go through and knock out as many of the phone calls as I can muster, and then I update my RTM as I do it.

Next time I get the call sheet, it's updated and ready to go. I find it helps me knock out calls much quicker than I would ordinarily.

Google Sites

urummel (Pro) says:

It is possible to combine RTM with Google site?
For example to show the RTM tasks on a Google site,
like the gadget in iGoogle

Keeping Track of Reading Assignments

polindsay (Pro) says:

RTM has been a life saver for me when it comes to keeping track of homework and assigned reading for my college classes. At the beginning of each semester, I make a list for each class. I gather all of my syllabi and enter the tasks into their assigned list. It's a little tedious for a day or so, but it's much easier than pulling out my binder to check the syllabus when I do homework, or to try to record everything in an agenda which I'm bound to lose. It's great to be able to pull out my phone, look at the widget on my home screen to see what I need to work on, and watch the list shrink as I complete tasks.

But what about those times when I don't have my phone, or if I'm in a class where the professor assumes I'm not paying attention? I found a solution for that too!

On the RTM website, I go to the list I want and then click print in the upper right hand corner. That takes me to a print-friendly page of my list. I load a piece of card stock (resume paper works well too) into the printer and hit print. If the list is longer than one printed page, I flip the page over and send it back through to create a double-sided page. Then I fold the paper so it's small enough to fit in my textbook and voila! A bookmark with all the important assignments and test dates on hand!

Organizing your move with RTM

julio.bree says:

Hello everyone, I'm a huge fan of RTM and I use it everyday. That's why I got an idea to use it, when I moved together with my girlfriend:

I created a list called "move" and used it for all the different assignments and tasks I would have to cope with, when moving into our new flat. This includes painting, putting down a new floor, cleaning and (of course) buying a lot of new furniture.

In order to gain an overview of all the different needs for the rooms (mine were 6: kitchen, living room, hall, study room, bath, sleeping room), I started to add the tasks in a certain form:

The first term was always the room, e.g. "kitchen", then followed by the actual task (i.e. painting, cleaning etc.) or the required piece of furniture (e.g. base cabinet).

By doing it that way, I had a fluent list of all my rooms in "blocks" due to the alphabetical order of the tasks in RTM, when there are no dates or priorities.

To illustrate it:

Bath: Buy new toilet lid
Bath: Buy small carpet (max. 40cm x 60cm)
Bath: Buy base cabinet for under the sink
Bath: Clean tiles, mirror
Hall: Put down laminate
Hall: Paint walls in white
Hall: Nail the hall-stand to the wall
... etc. etc. etc.

RTM also allows to assign links to the tasks, so remembering the right piece of furniture, paint etc. was no problem at all.

Sometimes some tasks are more urgent than other ones, so what I simply did was adding a date or a priority to the task. When that was done, the list (according to its urgency) reorganized itself, so that the important tasks were on the top of all tasks, but still in alphabetical order.

That way the move was easy, fast and without any problems and thanks to RTM, we didn't forget anything and live together happily.

Best regards from Germany,
Julio

Reply to Tip for people living far from home

bordaigorl (Pro) says:

Thank you Emily!
I am really enjoying the pro version of the Android app...highly recommended!

Reply to Multiple "List" Smart List creation possible?

chad.hietpas says:

Awesome! Thank you so much! You blew my mind with them being smart lists themselves! Now THAT is powerful!

Reply to Multiple "List" Smart List creation possible?

rajjan (Pro) says:

(list:"List A" OR list:"List D" OR list:"List E") AND due:tomorrow

Please observe that the lists above can be smart lists themselves.

Multiple "List" Smart List creation possible?

chad.hietpas says:

Ok, if I would like to create a Smart list of a few other lists, is this possible?

As an example, if I have...
List A
List B
List C
List D
List E

Can I make a Smart list of List A, List D, List E, for "tomorrow"?

Reply to Tip for people living far from home

emily (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi bordaigorl,

Thanks for sharing this! I think Bob T. Monkey will be making much use of this tip on his visits back to Australia. :)

You're this week's Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner, so we've added a free year of Pro to your Remember The Milk account.

Reply to iPhone: use Launcher Center Pro templates to capture fast and easy

jakijak (Pro) says:

+1 Using the x-callback-url scheme would also allow for integration with Drafts for iOS.

Reply to What to bring for the day ("Bring" tag w/ reminders)

mike_weidlich says:

Good idea! Thank you for sharing it!

Adding a static set of tasks on demand

jgoethals (Pro) says:

I just started RTM a few days ago (signed up for Pro today) and one of my first tasks was trying to automate the first annoyance I hit. I have a task list called 'h-Laundry' for doing laundry tasks. I wash four different types of laundry; delicates, darks, whites, diapers. Each type requires slightly different steps and different settings on the machines.

As a long time software developer, and now stay-at-home dad, I am always looking for ways to automate repetitive steps as a single, easy action. I thought about making each set of tasks a weekly recurrence, but that's not exactly how I work. When I add things to each dirty clothes basket, I usually assess at that time whether I should do that laundry.

So I wanted a way to add my 2-6 steps to my h-Laundry list on-demand. My solution was to write a quick Win7 PowerShell script that would take a .txt file containing the list name and the necessary pre-written steps and email them to my RTM import email, thus adding them directly.

For anyone else using Win7 at home and interested in the technique, here is how I set it up. These instructions do require some computer knowledge in creating files. If you have specific problems and want to use it, I can try to help out where I can.

1) You need to allow your computer to run Powershell scripts. This is only required once on your computer. I had to do this:

START->All programs->Accessories->Windows PowerShell-> (right-click 'Windows PowerShell' at the bottom) -> Run As Administrator

At the PS prompt:
> Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

Then choose the default of "Y" to allow scripts you write to run. Type exit to close the window. Now to write the scripts.

2) Create a folder to store the scripts and your text files containing tasks. I created one called "PowerScripts" on my desktop.

Right-click on the desktop
Select New->Folder
Type the name as "PowerScripts"

3) Create the PowerShell script in the PowerScripts directory. This uses a Gmail account to send and will require you have a GMail account and store your password in this file. I have purposefully hidden my real data in the example below, so you will need to replace the obvious fake data with your own.

Fake data:
my_gmail@gmail.com <-- enter your GMail address
my_rtm_username+9999aa+import@rmilk.com <-- enter your RTM import address
my_password <--- enter your GMail password

Note: You may want to set $EmailTo to you own GMail account at first in order to test that the script is working before you start sending weird data to RTM.

filename: zRTM-send.ps1
--- copy below this line ---
$EmailFrom = “my_gmail@gmail.com”
$EmailTo = “my_rtm_username+9999aa+import@rmilk.com”
$Subject = Get-Content -Path $args | Select-Object -index 0
$Message = Get-Content -Path $args | Select-Object -Skip 1
$Body = $Message -join "`r`n"
$SMTPServer = “smtp.gmail.com”
$SMTPClient = New-Object Net.Mail.SmtpClient($SmtpServer, 587)
$SMTPClient.EnableSsl = $true
$SMTPClient.Credentials = New-Object System.Net.NetworkCredential(“my_gmail@gmail.com”, “my_password”);
$SMTPClient.Send($EmailFrom, $EmailTo, $Subject, $Body)
--- copy above this line ---

4) Create a Windows CMD batch file to allow easy drag/drop of your text file. Again, create it in the PowerScripts folder.

filename: _Drop-On-Me.cmd
--- copy below this line ---
powershell "& 'C:\Users\your-name\Desktop\PowerScripts\zRTM-send.ps1' '%1'
--- copy above this line ---

Note that it needs the path to PowerShell file you created in step 3. You should replace "your-name" with your Win7 user name.

5) Create .txt files for your list of tasks. Here is an example of one of mine.

filename: Laundry-Diapers.txt
--- copy below this line ---
h-Laundry
4.1 soak diapers
4.2 agitate with whitening powder and let sit overnight
4.3 finish wash cycle ^tomorrow
4.4 hang diapers ^tomorrow
4.5 fluff diapers ^tomorrow
4.6 fold diapers ^tomorrow
--- copy above this line ---

I use the numbering system so that the tasks all sort in the order I need to do them.

6) Now everyone is setup. Whenever you want those 6 tasks to be added to RTM, just drag the "Laundry-Diapers.txt" file and drop it onto the "_Drop-On-Me.cmd" file and it will do the rest.

Cheers.

a simple now, sooner, later approach

jlottosen (Pro) says:

my effective and simple setup is - three lists:

Inbox =
task with specific dates, repeating task etc. This are the things to do NOW, and to know what's coming. I use locations, and tags to differentiate. Household chores for instance have a tag, as well the kids.

Sooner =
Things with no specific due date, but is coming up. Things to do, when there is time for it. It's usually sorted by priority, and most things make it to the inbox when they have a date.

Later =
everything else down the line. Clean the drain pipes ... eventually. :-) Add ideas to keep me form forgetting them (not promises though).

/jlottosen

Reply to My GTD method in RTM

steveinadelaide (Pro) says:

Hi there... this is excellent information... thank you!

I have a question about the hidden lists. I have installed "A Bit Better RTM" but not sure what I do to implement the hidden lists above. Any help would be appreciated!

Reply to Different Kinds of Due Dates

rdurdyyew (Pro) says:

To make the tags be sorted together and to make input on mobile easier I would suggest renaming those three tags as, for example, d.expiration d.reminder d.due.

Reply to Upcoming Tasks

unknownbreaker (Pro) says:

this was a great tip. i do the same thing with putting tasks in with a due date of today.

Reply to Different Kinds of Due Dates

rajjan (Pro) says:

Nice tip! You could probably mix in some/all of the Sleeper tag method described here: blog.rememberthemilk.com/2009/04/tips-tricks-tuesday-using-sleeper-tags/

Snooze List

hiteshnh (Pro) says:

Since I rely on my phone app to remind me of due tasks, one thing I noticed (and perhaps others did too as evident from the number of votes on this idea) was the absence of a snooze option in reminders. Sometimes I get a reminder when I’m in the middle of something else and instead of opening up the task properties and modifying the due time, I just dismiss it from the notification panel. And then it slips out of my mind.

As a workaround, I created a smart list called Snooze with the following search criteria (using the NOT operator).

dueBefore:now NOT dueBefore:"today 12:01AM"

This list will show up all tasks that are overdue from earlier today but not tasks that are simply ‘due today’ (i.e. tasks due today but with no due time)

I created a badge for this smart list on my homescreen so that I can quickly see all dismissed tasks in one place and either perform them or set a new date/time for them.

Cheers.

Different Kinds of Due Dates

rksnh6 (Pro) says:

One of the things I've worked on in tidying up my lists is keeping the integrity of due dates. I discovered that I was looking at 8-10 tasks that were "due" every day, and mentally sorting through which ones were actually due, which ones were just things I'd wanted to be reminded of, and which ones were things I just wanted to get done today. I also found myself looking at tasks that were due in the future, but which, for whatever reason, I couldn't do anything about today.

So now, every time I create a task with a due date, I give it one of three tags: "expiration," "reminder," or "due."

"Expiration" is a date after which the task will no longer be relevant. Generally, this translates to a hard deadline - do it by this date, or it's gonna hurt. Sometimes this is clear-cut - a proposal deadline, for instance. Sometimes it's less so - what is the last possible day I can book a hotel for my trip to Cleveland? For the sake of integrity, I try to keep this realistic. I *could* book a hotel the day that I arrive in Cleveland - so I set the due date as the day I arrive. Now, I'd rather book it before then, and because of the way my working to-do lists are set up, which I'll get to in a second, I'll have ample opportunity to do that.

"Reminder" is just that - a piece of information I want to send to my future self. These usually have broader time frames - "Look into summer weekend trips" or "Send follow-up about fall application."

"Due" is a pretty narrow category - tasks that can only be completed on a particular date, not before and not after. "Pack for Cleveland trip" - I'm only going to do that the day before I leave. I also occasionally include things that, yes, I could do on a different day, but know for certain I'm going to do on a particular day. Today, for instance, is Valentine's Day. I've been planning on buying wine and presents this afternoon for a week. So while I could have done that any time before today ("expiration"), I mark it as "due", because I only want it to show up on today's list. (Is making plans for Valentine's Day on RTM sexy? I'm not sure. But do you know what is even less sexy than planning Valentine's Day on RTM? Failing to make plans for Valentine's Day.)

Which brings us to the point of all this - when and how I want to see these different categories on my list. Since my life will get significantly worse if an "expiration" task flies by without my noticing, I want to see those well in advance. "Reminder" and "Due" tasks, on the other hand, I don't want to see before the date that I've marked. So, among many other parameters (because I'm a closeted RTM nerd), my working list includes a search for, "(tag:expiration and dueWithin:'1 week of today' not tag:reminder not tag:due) OR dueBefore:tomorrow. " Together, these criteria mean that "expiration" tasks appear on my list the week before they're due, and "reminder" and "due" appear on the date they're due.

When a "due" task appears, I obviously need to complete the task. The "reminder" category is the one that requires some decision-making. If the task now has some kind of a hard deadline associated with it, I'll revise the due date and tag appropriately. More often than not, though, I remove the due date and add it to my general, un-dated list of things to do - because a very important factor in this plan was eliminating the "wishful thinking" due date. If it doesn't fall into one of these three categories - expiration, reminder, or due - I don't assign a due date, no matter how much my deadline-happy self might want to.

But - I've been using this system for a few months, and now that I'm in the swing of it, it rarely fails, and my deadline-happy self is even happier knowing that all of its deadlines are to be trusted.

What to bring for the day ("Bring" tag w/ reminders)

racheocity (Pro) says:

I go to college, and live off-campus. I usually leave my house in the morning, stay on campus all day, then return late at night. This means that I need to make sure I have ALL of my things I need for random classes/meetings/clubs/working out, etc., since it's not really possible to get home between things. (This probably applies to anyone who works full-time also, and can't go home to get things in the middle of the day).

I made myself a tag to keep track of what I need to bring with me. Each task's name is the day of the week, and also has a due date of whatever day it is. Right now I have them repeating weekly (since a lot of stuff tends to repeat weekly in the college world), then I just add/subtract items as necessary. I list all the things I need to remember to bring in the notes. I set a reminder for a bit before I need to leave that day, since I know I will have my phone on me. Then, when I get the reminder just before I leave the house, I can check to make sure I have everything on the list, and grab anything I forgot.

Also, I also have 2 smart lists: 1 called "bring today" and 1 called "bring tomorrow"- pretty simple, they have search functions of (respectively):

tag:bring AND due:today
tag:bring AND due:tomorrow

sometimes I look at what I need to bring the next day so I can pack at night, and sometimes I look at what I need to bring for the day so I can pack in the morning :)

sometimes if I need to bring stuff in the middle of the day (e.g. just from one specific class to another), I just add a new, one time event to the bring tag with a reminder for that time of day instead of the morning.

Reply to Valentine's Day and Remember The Milk

emily (Remember The Milk) says:

This was too good not to share on the blog, Grant. :)

Valentine's Day and Remember The Milk

grant (Pro) says:

Are you looking for something romantic to do for your significant other for this upcoming day of love? My girlfriend also has Remember The Milk, and we have a shared list for housework.

Unfortunately, I'll have to work a bit late on Valentines day, but I asked myself how I could be romantic even away from home. And the answer I thought of was.. Remember the Milk and a miniature chocolate-treasure hunt!

Here is how I will go about doing it tomorrow:

1. Make sure you and your Valentine's day partner have a shared list.

2. The night before Valentine's day, hide pieces of chocolate, love notes, and diamond rings around the house (Okay, maybe not the rings.. unless you're super rich). Make sure to jot down where they are so you don't forget later!

3. When you are at work and she is at home, add one task at a time that hints at the location of your hidden treasure. For example, "Check between the couch cushions... complete this task and I will add a new one."

4. Once he or she completes that task, (IE, found the chocolate), add another task.

5. Feel free to make the hints as easy or difficult as you choose!

Reply to Flash cards with RTM

emily (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi odelaney,

Very creative! You're this week's Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner, so we've added a free year of Pro to your account. :)

Priorities as a measure of percentage completion

hiteshnh (Pro) says:

Using RTM for my project management role, I came to realize that it is not uncommon for tasks to be piled up in any list or smart list. Sometimes, I am not able to strike off a task from a list even though I have made some progress in it. For example, I’m halfway through the task of reviewing a report or preparing a presentation.

I figured it would be better to use priorities as a measure of progress made in a task. So I assign priorities 2, 3 and N to tasks having High, Medium and Low levels of urgency while reserving Priority 1 for showing tasks in progress.

You could also assign these numbers to varying percentages of completion like 75% - Priority 1, 50% - Priority 2, 25% Priority 3 and 0% (Not started) for N.

Hope this is useful.

Reply to How to sync RTM with Thunderbird?

dbreton (Pro) says:

+1 It would be great if this was updated

Reply to RTM Custom Fluid Design

juliakm (Pro) says:

Thanks! This is really nice.

Reply to Trim Milk - Windows Phone application

nielsenkdk says:

Hey David, sounds all so great! :)

And all the respect to you for doing the job. If there are any way I can help you by e.g. translating the app to Danish or by donating a cup of coffee or the like, then please say so.

Alle the best,
Kim

Reply to Quadrant 1: Urgent and Important

lamantine (Pro) says:

Oh, it's pity that I didn't know about Tip&Tricks winners ;-) I'm using this matrix for about one year now and can't imagine my RTM account without it. So, here is the setup:

important & urgent: dueBefore:"7 days" priority:1
important but not urgent: (dueAfter:"6 days" OR due:never) priority:1
not important but urgent: dueBefore:"7 days" (priority:2 OR priority:3 OR priority:none)
not important & not urgent: (dueAfter:"6 days" OR due:never) AND (priority:2 OR priority:3 OR priority:none)

In my setup these 4 lists called:
Do
Delay
Delegate
Dump

Enjoy!

Reply to Planning for meetings

jmhoskins (Pro) says:

Elegantly simple! Very nice.

Reply to Stats on rtmstats

emily (Remember The Milk) says:

Nice! Thanks for sharing this! Some interesting stats here. :)

Stats on rtmstats

pwesolek (Pro) says:

Maybe not an tip to use by everybody, but certainly a usage of RTM.

I wrote some scripts to summarize the numbers people share on Twitter with 'I completed X tasks in 2012 #rtmstats' RTM auto-post. Take a look if you want to know how you compare to other RTM-ers!

Sorry, if this is wrong forum, I don't see where else it would fit.

The article: http://tu.wesolek.net/2013/02/stats-on-rtmstats.html

Reply to "Send to List" Keyboard Shortcut?

pwesolek (Pro) says:

If you use GreaseMonkey, there's a script for RTM which does that (among other goodies), with CTRL+M you can move selected tasks to other list.

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/61989