Review: Remember The Milk–Personal Task Manager with Great Integrations

remember the milk (rtm) is a very popular and free online task manager for personal usage. In its core it works with lists and allows for great integration into your work flow due to a ton of different services and device apps.

Feature Set: Focus on Lists and Simplicity

The core functionality revolves around lists that you can sort your tasks into. You can create as many lists as you want to – you can even define “smart list” by individual search criteria.

You can email your tasks to rtm and they land in your inbox as do all tasks that you don’t assign to a specific list.

The tasks in remember the milk can have the following properties:

• part of a list
• tags
• due date
• priority (1, 2, 3 – visualized by color)
• notes (any kind of text)
• repeat functionality (daily, weekly and so forth)
• location (where this task can be completed)

Sharing, Reminders, Overview and Services

Even though rtm offers you the possibility to share tasks, this feature is not at the center of the tool. The process of sharing a task is not very straight forward and you have to invite the person before being able to send them the task.

A very interesting feature is the reminder. As in most tools you can set a due date for you task. In rtm however you can also set how you want to be reminded: Either by a message to your mobile phone, your IM service or email. And how long before the due time you want to me reminded.

The overview section is supposed to help you decide on what to do next. There are only three list: Due today, due tomorrow and overdue. There is also a tag cloud with all your tags.

The feature that for me personally makes rtm so appealing is their integration into other tools and devices.

There is a whole list of services available:

• ipad, iphone, ipod touch app
• android app (only with a pro account)
• gmail plugin (my favourite – shows a tiny rtm interface within gmail, where you can see and add tasks quick and easily)
• integration into outlook
• rtm for blackberry
• you can use it offline with google gears
• many more rtm services and third party integrations can be found here

Without the services I would have probably only given rtm 2 out 5 for feature. Because it focuses on personal usage primarily and apart from the list view there are not many features to help you get things done. But the gmail plugin definitely integrates awesomely into my workflow.

Feature Rating: 3/5

Design and Usability:

Working with Tasks: Completing and Editing

What really bugs me about rtm is the way there main work area. Especially when trying to work through and edit your tasks.

On the top you have tabs with your lists which break into a second row if you have too many lists. This makes it harder to see all your lists. Also there could be a count to the items in each lists displayed – so that you have a better overview of your status.

In center left you have your list with todos in your current list-tab. This basically is fine. However, if you want to edit or change something with your currently selected task, you have to go up all the way beneath the tab-list and select whatever action you like from a dropdown. You cannot really complete a task at the task. Click and done style.

But even worse is the work flow for editing tags or other information of a task. You have check the task and then on the top right side appears an overview of the tasks properties where you click and edit. So if your task is in a list of 20 or 30 tasks the box you edit in is far away from your task and your context.

Creating a Task

The last critique holds true for adding a task. After you put in your tasks title you have to select it and edit its properties as described – this really is a nuissance.

The only real remidy is to learn the shortcuts which makes working with rtm a lot faster.

Design Rating: 2/5

Overall Impression: Well Integrated Personal Task Manager

Sometimes it’s less about the features or the usability – sometimes it’s more about whether or not a tool fits into your workflow. For me remember the milk works well, because it has a has a widget available in a place I use throughout my whole work day: In gmail. I do most of interaction with rtm through this widget, which definitely works for me.

The tool itself lacks a couple of features (like simple task sharing) and the usability could be improved. If you are looking for a free, simple and versatile task manager – remember the milk could be the one for you.

Overall Rating: 3/5

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For a complete remember the milk guide check out their getting started section.

Productive Email Management: Getting Things Done in Your Inbox

Email is big part of our everyday workflow. Getting hundreds of emails daily is a normal thing these days. Different people, different contexts, different actions make even harder to stay on top email.

Step 1: Emptying your Inbox

In an interesting free paper by Getting Things Done author David Allen, the classic GTD approach is applied to email:

1. regularly empty your inbox
2. file everything that you don’t need to take an action on
3. complete the emails that will take less than 2 minutes
4. file those that you are waiting someone else to take action on in a folder: waiting-for
5. file those that take you longer than 2 minutes in a folder: action

Now your inbox should be empty.

A very similar approach is presented by Merlin Mann with “Inbox Zero” over at google:

Step 2: Being in Control - Review your Folders

After getting your inbox to zero or emptying it you still have a lot left to do: Check the folders you have created regularly:

• manage and complete the emails in your “action” folder
• keep the mails in your “waiting-for” folder up-to-date
• keep emptying your inbox :)

If you are a gmail user you might like our article on getting productive with gmail priority inbox.

Gmail Priority Inbox: Getting Important Things Done First

If you get a lot of emails and have trouble deciding which emails to read and reply to first, google mails new priority inbox might be the right thing for you:

It sorts your emails into two categories (you can even set more) important and everything else by following criteria that are displayed as seperate blocks beneath each other:

• emails you read
• emails you respond to
• emails you mark as important or unimportant

You even get a new navigation item called “priority inbox” so that you can switch to you standard inbox any time.

To turn it on, just go to your settings –> “priority inbox” tab. You can adjust your settings any time.

What About “Getting Things Done” and “Inbox Zero”?

If you are familiar with Merlin Manns “inbox zero” concept or David Allens Getting Things Done methodology, you might be wondering, whether “priority inbox” actually keeps you from getting things done.

Both todo management strategies rely on you not having to decide what to read and what not, but just going through your emails or todos and either archiving, delegating, making an action out of it or just doing it. The goal is to get your inbox empty.

Priority Inbox on the other hand seems to put emphasis on certain emails instead of others. This “everything else” part could not get enough attention and eventually grow over time until becoming unmanageable. Thus being an annoying stress factor in your todo management strategy.

Have you tried gmails “priority inbox” and what are your experiences?

I will try it out the next couple of weeks and report on mine :)

[via avc.com]