[Remind-Fans] How do you manage your todo list(s) using Remind?

Mon Jun 27 14:31:56 EDT 2016

On Mon, Jun 27, 2016 at 01:28:25PM -0400, Abner Gershon wrote:
> I have used remind off and on for the several years but never really got
> hooked on it because I was unable to effectively manage my todo lists.  [...]
> I am interested to know how other people have gotten around these issues.

I don't use just Remind for that.  I only look at my Remind stuff in the
morning when I get the daily email message, and almost all my reminders
have "+99" for advance warning so that I get a comprehensive list of
what's coming each morning, nicely sorted by upcoming date.  My daily
email looks like this (condensed):

| Reminders for Monday, 27th June, 2016 (today):
| 
| Sun 05:15 - 20:55   Daylight 15:40   Moon +262
| 
| ----- T O D A Y - Monday June 27 -------------------------------
| 
| 19:20  Mens Meeting to 9:30pm
| 
| ----- T O M O R R O W - Tuesday June 28 -------------------------------
| 
| Tue Jun 28 00:00  Earthdance July 4th Contact Improv Dance Jam (in USA) 
| 
| ----- N E X T   6   D A Y S -------------------------------------------
| 
| Wed Jun 29 19:00  Lola Group Improv to 9:15pm (Room 8) in 2 days' time
| Sun Jul 03 10:15  Dance to Nature  in 6 days' time
| 
| ----- N E X T   3 0   D A Y S------------------------------------------
| 
| Jul 05 Tue 00:00  Earthdance Touch & Play (in USA)  in 8 days' time
| Jul 15 Fri 00:00  Biodanza with Anne Marie at Ripon  in 18 days' time
| Jul 18 Mon 19:00  5 Rhythms with Lynne Adams to 9pm in 21 days' time
| Jul 22 Fri 00:00  ACI Sutton Contact Jam  in 25 days' time
| 
| ----- M O R E   T H A N   3 0 -----------------------------------------
| 
| Aug 05 Fri 19:00  Barefoot Boogie in Rupert (Wakefield)  in 39 days' time
| Aug 17 Wed 00:00  DNE Dance New England Summer Camp   in 51 days' time
| Sep 30 Fri 00:00  Burlington VT Contact Jam (in USA)  in 95 days' time
| Oct 21 Fri 00:00  5 Rhythms with Evangelos  in 116 days' time
| Nov 26 Sat 00:00  Montreal Annual Contact Improv Dance Jam  in 152 days' time

For a TODO list, I need way more control over repeated reminders and
prompts.  One email in the morning won't do it.

When I want to be bugged about something repeatedly, I wrote a little
Linux script "ir" that I run that queues up a Unix "at" job to remind
me of something again in a little while:

    $ ir "Pay your 1st qtr taxes before April 15" 12:00 apr 13

At noon on April 13 I would get an "xmessage" box on the middle of my
screen that shows the above text.  Along the bottom are buttons to either
dismiss the message or postpone it (re-queue the "at" job) at some time
in the future: 5 minutes, 10 minutes, ..., 12 hours, 18 hours, 1 day,
2 days.  I could pick "30 minutes" and the box will re-appear to remind
me in 30 minutes.  It re-appears until I use the "Dismiss" button.

If I'm not logged in on that screen, the xmessage fails and I get an
email message sent about that reminder every five minutes, which is
probably too often, but better that than not enough.

I have "ir" reminders queued months and even years into the future.
(I have to remember to copy my "at" spool during upgrades!)  Typing just
"ir" lists the texts of the queued reminders (from each of the "at" jobs):

    $ ir
    8873 Mon Jun 27 14:50 2016  COMMS
    8869 Mon Jun 27 15:13 2016  Prepare to return GPS
    8870 Mon Jun 27 15:13 2016  Mens Meet 7:20pm leave 7pm
    8412 Thu Jul  7 21:53 2016  Britannia Beach 10am Playback 1pm Sat Jul 9
    8413 Sat Jul  9 22:12 2016  5Rhythms 7pm Mon Jul 11
    8837 Mon Jul 11 08:00 2016  Return GPS?
    6535 Wed Jul 13 10:23 2016  ACSIS maintenance July 15-18
    5118 Sun Aug 14 23:32 2016  Burlington Jam Billet Sep 30 to Oct 1
    3852 Thu Jun  1 16:34 2017  Airline Miles Expire Jun 15 2017
    3853 Sun Oct  1 16:34 2017  Airline Miles Expire Nov 2017
    6117 Thu Feb  1 11:18 2018  renew example.com Apr 18 2018
    5036 Thu Feb  1 18:24 2018  renew example.ca Mar 6 2018
    5037 Thu Feb  1 18:25 2018  renew example.ca Mar 6 2018

I should probably tweak the script to keep track of how many times
I postpone a reminder into the future, to measure my procrastination
quotient!

-- 
| Ian! D. Allen, MMath  -  idallen at idallen.ca  -  Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
| Home: http://idallen.com/  Contact Improv Dance: http://contactimprov.ca/
| College professor (Free/Libre GNU+Linux) at: http://teaching.idallen.com/
| Defend digital freedom:  http://eff.org/  and have fun:  http://fools.ca/