How do you remember to do stuff?

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Hee Hee! [ironic cackle]

Suggest this should be rephrase as "I was curious how you successfully remind yourself to complete certain tasks". For the following reasons:



Yup, me too. I have about 20 post-its stuck to the tower next to me and I've had to add tape because some are so old that the glue's perished. I also have a little to-do book (my latest inspired idea), which was working really well until this week when I suddenly decided I was too busy to keep checking or updating it. There's also a really big list on bright blue paper stuck to the wall in front of me. I remember putting it there so I'd see it every day because it has to do with something really important. However, I have no idea what and, glancing at it now, I can't really make much sense of it. I've decided to assume that if it really is important it'll come back and bite me at some point and then I'll know.



Yes, I practice both these techniques. My unread e-mail counter is currently at 2,917 in Gmail. The latter method is my preferred one at work, but inevitably I end up closing e-mails without having dealt with them at the end of the day. Some times I make a to-do list of them before I close them to remind me later. Hah!



I thought this was a good idea too. I now have 8 note sheets on my desktop, each with a different purpose for keeping memos. All of them have developed scroll bars because I've started using them as a sort of quick-access filing system instead. They're not backed-up so I'm dreading the outcome if my profile ever fails me.



I use Outlook Calendar. Actually, that's one of the better ones since it pops up every day with reminders. This is the only way I survive as a line manager of 4 people.



That's an amazing idea. I did something similar for projects at college, but it never occurred to me to apply it to life in general too. Problem is I could find so many reasons to spend hours reorganising or decorating it instead of using it.


To conclude, my desk is quite tidy and I seem to convey an atmosphere of being reasonably organised. The truth is that I can't open my top drawer because of all the unfinished paperwork I shoved in there and I can't open the second drawer because it's full of shredded confidential papers and envelopes that I never remember to put in recycling.

Since I'm very often on my computer, I use an email calendar feature that has scheduled 'reminders'. When the date and time arrives for a particular event, the window pops up with the reminder message. During busy times these popups can be a pain in the ass but at least I'm forced to not forget my todos.

My desk at work is covered with little scraps of paper with lots of notes to myself. At home, everything is pretty routinized. To keep from misplacing things, I always put something in exactly the place where I found it and immediately upon arriving I insist on putting away things like purse and keys, despite this causing conflict with other household members who want my immediate attention.

I keep eberrything in my head. I can't use lists or post-its or calendars or reminders or any other eggsternal system. It has to be all in my head.

Chore schedule, posted to the wall. Email reminders of bills due. Mostly just forget stuff...

For a while I kept everything on a sheet of paper that I would carry around in my pocket. Then the smartphone was invented and I just started recording everything in that. Fortunately, whenever I'm bored and don't quite know what to do it's one of the first things I will look at.

I use the Reminders app on my iPhone. No amount of sticky notes will remind me of what's important.

I also rely on lists. If I didn't I would never remember to do anything. I have a brightly-coloured notepad which I always keep in the same place and never move, and whenever I have something to add, or need to check what needs doing, I always go to it. If it is a shopping list I can just tear the page out and put it in my wallet to take with me. If you are disorganised, never just write your lists on random bits of paper which you can lose, that's just asking for trouble! I don't personally use sticky notes because that's too many different bits of paper in different places, though perhaps they would work if they were always in the same place, like on a special board for your notes.

As others have said, if you have a smartphone you can make sure your list is always on your person, or if you are usually at home you can use something like a whiteboard (I have one of those too, but found I preferred using the notepad because I was used to it). Either way, just make sure you keep your lists in one place where they can be easily referenced, and hopefully that will solve the problem.