CyberNotes: Remember the Milk – Free Simple Task Manager

Free For All Friday

You can’t but help remember the name, “Remember The Milk.” I’m sure we’ve all said something along the lines of “Remember ________” and without fail at sometime or another we’ve forgotten because we didn’t write it down. If you’re having trouble mentally managing your to-do list, you may want to check out “remember the milk,” a task manager in beta. Their slogan says: ”The best way to manage your tasks. Never forget the milk (or anything else) again.” They’ll be celebrating their 1 year anniversary in October and have made many improvements and updates to the service along the way.

– Getting An Account–

Signing up for an account is simple and free, and there’s nothing to download because everything is web based. This means you can access your list just about anywhere that you have an Internet connection.  I literally registered for my account in under a minute. If you don’t speak English, there are 12 different languages that they support. They are: Bosnian, German, Swedish, Turkish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Dutch, UK English, French, Japanese, Brazilian, Portuguese, and Spanish.

–Getting Organized–

Yes, there are lots of task managers out there, however this one is particularly nice because of a tabbed user interface that makes it simple to manage different to-do lists. You’re able to have as many to-do lists as necessary. Just like other such services, you’re able to share and publish your list. An additional feature that they offer is the capability to send your to-do list via text message to your phone. It makes getting organized simple and easy and leaves you with no excuses to be unorganized.

With one click you’re able to see what’s due today, tomorrow, or a week from today.  You’re also able to prioritize with a color coded/numbered method.  If a task is due today it is displayed in bold.  If it is overdue, it will have an underline.  You’re also able to estimate your time for tasks and postpone a task to a later date.

–Managing Tasks–

I’m all about using RSS to manage everything and make life simpler. RTM (Remember the Milk) allows you to receive your lists via RSS, email or instant messaging. Instant messengers services that are supported include Skype, AIM, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN and Yahoo! You’re able to add tasks no matter where you are via email or from your phone. Another feature that I like is the ability to view tasks on my Google calendar (you can also view them with Apple iCal).

They offer a “Quick Add” which allows you to add important dates and times you find on the Internet to your account. This service is available for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Opera. You could use this for online bill services, exam dates taken from an online syllabus, and the list goes on and on. Another example they offer is to keep track of an auction ending on eBay. You would highlight the date and time and then click the “add to RTM” bookmark. It’s as simple as highlighting the date and clicking, and your task has been added.

–Other Helpful Features–

Tagging seems to be the popular feature for any service to have lately, and RTM is no exception. You can create tags for different entries such as exams, grocery store, bills, etc.  This makes recalling important dates related to the tags easy and convenient.

They also have a good sized list of keyboard shortcuts (some of them pictured below) to save you some time.

-Overall-

Overall, Remember The Milk is a helpful to-do list service that has some great Web 2.0 features implemented.  If you haven’t tried out such a service and you’re still using the paper, pencil, post-it note method, check it out. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how simple, easy, and convenient services such as RTM can be. And of course, it’s free!

 This is just one of the hundreds of CyberNotes we have done. You can find more of them by visiting our CyberNotes category, or by subscribing to our CyberNotes feed. We also have a full feed available if you want to receive all of our articles in your reader!

Tags: CyberNotes, General, Web Sites

Related Posts:

• CyberNotes: Your Week In Review With Sunday’s Summary
• Amazing Task Manager For Google Calendar…But Not By Google!
• Giveaway: Remember The Milk Pro Accounts
• WOW! Remember the Milk in Gmail
• CyberNotes: Services Offered By Remember the Milk