Best Results Organizing

Nagging is the repetition of unpalatable truths.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve talked about all digital solutions that that provide alternatives to offices cluttered with Post-It Notes and reminders written on the backs of deposit slips. In general, these solutions focused on creating digital To Do lists, or taking advantage of virtual virtual assistants like Sandy and Jott.

Sometimes, however, the cluttering paper reminders don’t fill up our own environment, but pile up around our friends, family members, colleagues or employees as we nag them to accomplish what we need or desire. Then, our stickies and notes and memos add just a bit more fuel to the fire of their (and, if we share space, our) frustration. Let’s face it, no matter how efficient we are, if we’re adding to someone else’s clutter, it’s like raking the leaves and then dumping them in our neighbor’s yard. Sneaky fun, but not entirely a bright idea.

Instead, our friends atMonkeyOnYourBack have a cute solution that yields all the sneaky fun, without grumpy people coming after us with pitchforks.

Registration is simple:

• Fill in a teeny form with your email address, name, time zone and password, and then confirm that you agree with their Terms and Conditions.

• Check your email inbox for a confirmation email to prove you really are who you say you are. Click on the link in the email, and you’re good to go!

By the way, registration is free, as is the service as long as you only have five or fewer “live monkeys” currently active. For a one-time fee of $20, registered users can have an unlimited number of monkeys active at any one time.

(This gives one pause to consider the famed infinite monkey theorem and how we might finally arrive at those infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewriters to achieve Shakespearian quality literature and theater. Indeed, with all the time you’ll save by not nagging reminding your loved ones or co-workers, you might be able to create a world-famous blog to unite the populace in updating the theorem to include computers and not just typewriters, but perhaps that’s just Paper Doll‘s fantasy To Do list item.)

Once you’re registered, you have a few options. First, you can create a new monkey (insert your own Darwin joke, folks — Paper Doll tries to steer clear of controversy like that) and send it to a recipient.

The elements are simple: WHO (at what address) do you wish to urge to do WHAT, by WHEN? To create a new monkey, just:

1) Send a monkey to remind…

Enter the email address of the person you wish to nag remind. For example, you could prompt a team member at work to update a spreadsheet, or you could alert your computer-addicted teen that it’s almost dinner time and he should come downstairs to set the table. Thus, you’d type the email of the remindee, teamgoofball@BigCompany.biz or darlingchild@ourfamily.com, just as you would if you were sending an email.

2) To do the following…

Fill in the “brief description”–that is, what do you want them to do?

You also have an option to click on “add a longer description”. For example, if you’ve got a series of instructions you wish to include, or have the urge to pontificate on WHY you are reminding your spouse, yet again, that he has purchased the wrong brand (of toilet paper, charcoal briquettes, luxury automobile, etc.) and you wish him to return it, posthaste, in iambic pentameter, no less, have at it! Monkey On Your Back gives you space to do this.

3) By…

Enter the date and time frame by which you want the task completed; there’s even a calendar you can click to search ahead, so you need not know upon what day of the week your birthday will fall 5 years from now, in case you wish to remind your spouse to buy you candy and flowers.

Please note that Monkey’s web site was created by our friends at AlienCamel in Australia, so they use the date construct popular in most places outside North America: Day of the Week, Date, Month, Year.

You may specify an actual time, or select from pre-created options: “Start of the day”, “Middle of the Day”, and “End of the day”. Sorry to say, you can’t send a monkey to make them do something five minutes ago, as the time travel module has not yet been added.

That’s it! Your recipient will receive an email that looks something like the one below, only with a larger and cuter graphic of the monkey delivering the message.

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Paper Doll has sent me, a highly trained and super-intelligent monkey, to remind you to:

Read Paper Doll’s blog post on Family Filing from 11/6/2007

by Wed, 23 Jul 2008, 5:00 PM

You’ll be sent further reminder emails as the deadline approaches! If you want this monkey to stop bothering you, click here to kill the monkey.

To send your own monkeys, visit http://monkeyon.com

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When your recipient (AKA: the remindee) gets that email, he or she has the option to “kill” the monkey, which isn’t as violent as it sounds. When one clicks on “click here to kill the monkey”, the task/reminder is canceled and the recipients have the ability to send you a return comment telling you why they’ve killed the monkey and whether or not the task was completed.

Meanwhile, you can view your “LIVE” monkeys under the “Monkeys You’ve Sent” section, detailing the tasks, recipients, deadlines and status of each. Under each task, you have the ability to edit, “kill” (i.e., cancel) or view the history of each monkey.

There’s even a section to view your own monkeys, those reminders you’ve either sent to yourself (at this registered address) or others have sent to you.

Is it silly? Absolutely, but once someone has tired of receiving memo after note after stickie after stern look, it might behoove you to send a monkey to do your bidding and keep the paper clutter and bad feelings to a minimum.

Right now, the monkeys are just cute, but the developers promise updates with “tricks” our little Curious George-esque workers might do in the future. And let’s face it, if you feel the need to be the monkey on someone’s back, perhaps it couldn’t hurt to monkey around a little to keep everyone from going bananas.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

This week, we’re rounding out our discussion of digital helpers to keep our To Do lists from overflowing our desks and flat surfaces with floozies. Old-fashioned To Do lists, where you keep a running lists of tasks, are wonderful, provided that you:

a) keep your list prioritized and updated;
b) know where to find your list; and
c) actually look at your list!

For many of you readers, a list written on the back of an envelope, a Post-It or even a fresh sheet of notebook paper will be forgotten minutes after pen is set to paper, but a computerized list (even one created by you) carries more weight. It seems actual typeface wields magical powers that even the most perfect display of the Palmer handwriting method can’t match. So, if you’re the type who’s more likely to take orders from a list that lives online, here are some opportunities for you to use old-school To Do lists with a newfangled, online twist.

Unless noted otherwise, these sites are FREE to use (at least at the basic levels), although homemade sites do welcome donations!

Remember The Milk — While it helps that Paper Doll adores animated cows, the true test of a system is whether people use it and enjoy it, and according to a recent Lifehacker poll, Remember the Milk gets truly high marks. It seems like nobody can say enough good things about Remember the Milk’s interface and options, but as with all of these resources, only you can determine what will keep you committed to using your system. Just know you can milk (hee!) these features out of RTM:

• Lists are organized by tabs to make them easy to flip through, and reordering by priority is simple.
  
• Create your To Do items the way you prefer — Standard list? Tagged list? Task clouds? All are options here, so if you’d like to look at clouds from both sides now, have at it!
• Add tasks easily–by email, by phone, even by Sandy and Jott!
• Take your tasks with you if you have to be on the go! — Access your task lists on any web-enabled cell or mobile device, print an entire list or a weekly planner with upcoming tasks, view tasks on your web-based calendar with Apple iCal or Google Calendar or even subscribe to feeds with Atom or RSS (so it’s like blogging to an audience of one: YOU).
• Receive reminders however you wish–via email, SMS/text, and instant messenger (including AIM, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, Skype and Yahoo! IM).
• Color code tasks on your list, if you’re guided by visuals, and/or add add notes to tasks if you’re more verbal.

Ta Da List comes from the folks at 37 signals which an awfully good online rep for developing productivity tools (like Basecamp, Backpack and the new Highrise).

• Ta Da list combines listmaking with some common Web 2.0 features of social networking, so you can view other people’s lists to help you get started on your own. So, while you probably need to create your own grocery list, viewing someone else’s list of “Books I Should Read Before I’m 100” would probably benefit your own listmaking.
• Share your lists with family, friends or co-workers to help make sure nobody duplicates any efforts on a shared project. Or share with the world to inspire someone two continents away to spread your goal of trying every soda pop currently in production. Or keep your lists private, like a 7th grade diary entry.
• Lots of white space abounds, so you won’t feel overwhelmed by words and diagrams encroaching on your already overfilled brain.
• Larger-than-typical fonts mean you won’t have squint to read your lists; tasks can already be a headache, and Ta-da doesn’t want to contribute to that.
• Check boxes allow you the visual and visceral satisfaction of checking off a completed task.
• Use your favorite web browser for PCs and Macs…and even the iPhone.

Todoist is almost zen-like in its simplicity, and yet it managed to rank second, just behind Remember The Milk, in reader popularity in that Lifehacker poll. This leads Paper Doll to believe that we may really all desire fewer features, but more of one big benefit–serenity.

• Registration is amazingly simple. I timed myself–it took 14 seconds (using, of course, my browser’s auto-fill option for typing my name and email address).
• A series of keyboard shortcuts (just like you use in Word or Excel or your mail program) means your hands rarely have to leave the keyboard.
• Reminders can come in a variety of forms: Email, Instant Messages (via Jabber or MSN), cell phone text or Twitter.
• The interface is so easy, even a Caveman (uh, oh) technophobe could handle it.
• The calendar lets you set due dates and then view, with a click, what needs to be done when. You can even click to see what you’re overdue for completing, like reading the most recent Paper Doll blog!
• Integration with other systems, including gMail, iGoogle widgets, QuickSilver and a variety of other goodies means that simplicity doesn’t have to be low-tech.

Todoist has one other nifty feature–“screencast” videos with audio to walk you through each step of the process in order to maximize your use of the system. For those of us who like some hand-holding, this is appealing.

Bla Bla List isn’t very fancy, but for some people, the fewer attributes, the better.

• You can watch a video to see how fast and easy registration and list set-up can be.
• BlaBlah’s interface is designed to take up a small footprint on your screen, so you can keep it open while you’re working on other things.
• Set up an RSS feed so you can keep track of updates to your tasks.
• There are secure options to invite someone to access your lists (a family member? a work partner? your nutritionist or life coach?), and you can control all access.

Rough Underbelly‘s Online CEO makes getting things done into a game. If you’re the type who thrives on competition, even playing your own personal version of Beat The Clock when performing daily tasks, this may be an intriguing option for you.

• Daily, repeated To Do items are the focus. Unlike most To Do list web sites which focus on maintaining a wide variety of lists related to shopping, tasks, appointments and project elements, Rough Underbelly’s Online CEO is designed primarily for those who want to concentrate on daily tasks, like publishing blog posts, working out, prospecting clients, and so on.
• Assign point values to the tasks you create, based on the relative value (in your estimation) of completing the tasks.
• Once you check the box to show you’ve completed the task (like checking in after a treasure hunt), the system scores your success and creates neato charts and graphs to reflect your achievements.

Again, this is a more specialized option. If you’re looking for a straightforward web-based To Do system without the competitive aspect, opt for one of the choices.

Web To Do

Simple doesn’t even BEGIN to describe this option, representative of a lot of the homemade To Do list sites out there. After creating a username and password and providing your “real” name and email address, you’re faced with a simple screen a text box and an “ADD” button below each of four task options:

1. To Do Today
2. Near-term Goals
3. Long-term Goals
4. Other Fun Things

One a task is typed it, you can edit it, delete it, or with the click of an arrow, move it to the next category to downgrade its relative urgency or to the previous category to upgrade the urgency.

This is barely one step above using digital (on-screen) Post-It Notes that you can move around your desktop to indicate priority levels, but for those who like the sleek and simple, you can’t get any more streamlined that this option.

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The above items merely touch on some of the more popular or better known online To Do list sites, but just because something is well-blogged-about or in the running for Best “To Do” On Campus doesn’t mean it’s for everyone. Each system has its own backers, so you may also want to check out the following niche options, as well as Brian Benzinger’s stellar (if dated) 25 To Do Lists To Stay Productive post at Solution Watch:

do.Oh is best described as a To Do system crossed with some wacky polling options. It seems perfect for the younger, trendier set to use to poll friends via Twitter and Facebook. In other words, a great option for people with more time than tasks and a yen for the goofy.

Orchestrate was created by just one person and is “in beta”, meaning that it’s still being tested. The funny thing? Between Paper Doll finding the site and creating this post, the secret invitation-only aspect got so secret, nobody can play in this beta sandbox right now. But keep your eyes open!

ToodleDo is a clean hierarchical system of folders for projects or task types, with options for creating sub-tasks, tags (such as for status as tasks near completion) but sadly no task clouds, and myriad collaboration and mobile options.

Voo2Do ties with Remember the Milk for cutest logo! Note the option of seeing the original vs. current estimated completion dates for a tasks; the system also notes elapsed time and time remaining until estimated completion. That voodoo that they do so well reflects that people, and projects, must be flexible.

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And finally, if you’re experiencing To Do list overload, review 52Project.com’s excellent NOT TO DO LIST, especially my favorites:

• Do not put on Prince and party like it’s 1999. (Well, okay, maybe ONCE, just to get you fired up about your project.)

• Do not go into the bathroom and give your Academy Award acceptance speech.

Paper Doll is spending a solitary, soon-to-be-rainy, Sunday perusing a fictionalized travelogue circa 1889–Jerome K. Jerome‘s Three Men In a Boat. I’ve known of the book for years, heard it praised as one of the classics of English humor, and even seen it referenced in a favorite time-travel novel by Connie Willis, To Say Nothing Of The Dog, but only recently managed to pick it up.

I’ve been generally pleased by the pace, and the gentle English humor still holds up today (as slight sarcasm never goes out of style), but imagine my surprise to find a philosophical delight for professional (and amateur) organizers everywhere, amid chapter three:

The first list we made out had to be discarded. It was clear that the
upper reaches of the Thames would not allow of the navigation of a boat
sufficiently large to take the things we had set down as indispensable;
so we tore the list up, and looked at one another!

George said:

“You know we are on a wrong track altogether. We must not think of the
things we could do with, but only of the things that we can’t do
without.”

George comes out really quite sensible at times. You’d be surprised. I
call that downright wisdom, not merely as regards the present case, but
with reference to our trip up the river of life, generally. How many
people, on that voyage, load up the boat till it is ever in danger of
swamping with a store of foolish things which they think essential to the
pleasure and comfort of the trip, but which are really only useless
lumber.

How they pile the poor little craft mast-high with fine clothes and big
houses; with useless servants, and a host of swell friends that do not
care twopence for them, and that they do not care three ha’pence for;
with expensive entertainments that nobody enjoys, with formalities and
fashions, with pretence and ostentation, and with – oh, heaviest, maddest
lumber of all! – the dread of what will my neighbour think, with luxuries
that only cloy, with pleasures that bore, with empty show that, like the
criminal’s iron crown of yore, makes to bleed and swoon the aching head
that wears it!

It is lumber, man – all lumber! Throw it overboard. It makes the boat
so heavy to pull, you nearly faint at the oars. It makes it so
cumbersome and dangerous to manage, you never know a moment’s freedom
from anxiety and care, never gain a moment’s rest for dreamy laziness –
no time to watch the windy shadows skimming lightly o’er the shallows, or
the glittering sunbeams flitting in and out among the ripples, or the
great trees by the margin looking down at their own image, or the woods
all green and golden, or the lilies white and yellow, or the sombre-
waving rushes, or the sedges, or the orchis, or the blue forget-me-nots.

Throw the lumber over, man! Let your boat of life be light, packed with
only what you need – a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two
friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat,
a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little
more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.

You will find the boat easier to pull then, and it will not be so liable
to upset, and it will not matter so much if it does upset; good, plain
merchandise will stand water. You will have time to think as well as to
work. Time to drink in life’s sunshine – time to listen to the AEolian
music that the wind of God draws from the human heart-strings around us –
time to –

I beg your pardon, really. I quite forgot.

Well, we left the list to George, and he began it.

It further helps that I am imagining the wonderful Hugh Laurie (with his true English accent and not his also-adorable Gregory House grumble) as the narrator. (What, you think Paper Doll ought to be true in her affections solely to Mr. Clooney?)

Nonetheless, as you enjoy your summer and we approach a holiday week (here in the U.S.), I encourage you to ask yourself — what’s in your boat?

 

How are you doing at getting rid of the floozies (those loose scraps of paper reminders) in your life?

Over the past few weeks, we’ve talked about why just sticking reminders on our desks or fridge doors is counter-productive, and how using digital solutions enables you to let go of things from your active memory while avoiding the paper pile-up.

Last week‘s fun tool was Jott, which lets you call from your cell phone (or any number you’ve registered) and tell a computerized digital assistant what to do: send you a reminder (via email), email notes to friends or colleagues, add items to a work, personal or project list or create a blog post by voice. Instead of jotting something down on a stray piece of paper (creating a floozy), you can make a quick phone call (while mobile) to get the right information to the right people while avoiding killing a single tree.

Jott is a personal assistant you contact with a phone call. This week, we’re going to focus on Sandy, your private Jeeves (or Jeevette), whom you trigger with a quick email.

Sandy, a lifelike Gal Friday at IWantSandy.com, is set up to operate just like a virtual assistant. The twist? She’s a virtual virtual assistant, made up of bits and bytes. Sure, if you have more heavy-duty needs, you’ll want to find a reputable human virtual assistant through the International Virtual Assistants Association, but if you just need a helping hand (or a Helping Hannah) to remind you to stop blogging now and go pick up your kids from school, or to move your car to opposite-side-of-the-street parking, or to start working on your taxes (while avoiding the Floozy Patrol for paper pileups), Sandy may be your girl.

What does Paper Doll like best about Sandy?

• The service is free.
• There’s nothing to install on your computer, PDA, cell phone or whatever gadget Mr. Jobs and Mr. Gates are working on next. (Don’t you hate having to install something before figuring out if you even like it?)
• There’s nothing to learn and no special “language”. Contacting Sandy to get “her” to remind you of things is as easy as sending an email, and certainly you already know how to do that!
• You can contact Sandy via email, texting, Twitter, Jott and an ever-expanding number of options.
• You can skip extra steps — in fact, you can let Sandy “eavesdrop” on an email conversation by CCing her, and “she” can read between the lines to figure out what you want her to do.
• You’re not weighed down with information before you need it. Sandy can be programmed to only tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it. That Post-It Note on its last legs, hanging from the desk lamp to remind you to do something in September sure can’t say that!
• Sandy’s system sets up a special personalized address to help prevent spam. So instead of the address to which you are sending Sandy a request appearing as boringthing@IWantSandy.com, you actually get to personalize it with two elements, before and after the @ sign, so your address format might be @<2ndName>.IWantSandy.com. Thus, you could have an address like ManOfDreams@Clooney.IWantSandy.com to ensure that work reminders are a little more fun.
• It feels like you’re dealing with a real person. Sometimes, the reminders I get from Sandy say “Hi”, but today, I got one that greeted me with “Merhaba, Paper Doll” (that’s Turkish, for “howdy, partner!”) and once I got one that said “Gruzi!”, which I’ll admit was a puzzle. But that’s part of the fun!

Getting started is easy:

Sign up for a free account at IWantSandy.com and provide your preferred email address and password, and then agree to the boilerplate Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, which seem to apply strict rules prohibiting doing mean or nasty things, a la Google’s “Don’t Be Evil” policy. Love that!

Sandy will then send you an email to activate your account. Click on the activation link!

Once you’re activated–think of it as having completed Sandy’s W-4, as if she’d been an actual employee–Sandy will email your personalized email address at which you can reach her. It won’t be a fun address, but don’t worry, you’ll be able to log in to your account and change it. Other things you’ll be able to do at this point:

Set up a nickname so Sandy will address you however you wish: Dude, Boss Lady, Mommy, Your Holiness…whatever you prefer.

Set up a secondary address, in case you can’t access your primary address, such as when you’re on vacation or your work account seems to have run away and joined the French Foreign Legion. (And in case you’re wondering, you can even send Sandy messages directly from the website for those times when you’ve got web access but can’t get into any of your 43 email accounts.)

Specify your time zone, as well as your preferred lead time to tell Sandy how far prior to having to take an action you want Sandy to remind you. If you’re the type who forgets things 30 seconds after you’re told, you’ll want a short lead-time so you don’t get distracted; if you prefer having a buffer of 15 minutes so you can wind up whatever work you’re doing, you can schedule that, too.

Allow Sandy to send you SMS/text messages on your cell phone and/or generally tell Sandy where/when/how to reply to you.

You can also decide whether you want Sandy to confirm back to you that she got your message. Remember Mrs. (ha)Wiggins and Mr. Tudball on the old Carol Burnett show? (Trust me, click on that last link to give yourself today’s laugh!) Poor Mr. Tudball would really have appreciated getting some sense that Mrs. (ha)Wiggins heard and understood what he said. I’m sure Murphy Brown would have appreciated the same thing from any of her revolving door of assistants. But maybe you trust Sandy to be your personal Radar O’Reilly and won’t need any confirmations. That’s up to you! And hey, even if you generally would prefer a reminder, but you know you’re going to have a high-email kind of day, you can tag an item with @noreminder to override this setting and have Sandy skip the reminder.

You can twitter a message to Sandy. Are you a twitterer? Sandy can “follow” your tweets, enabling you to twitter her with your public or Sandy-only tweets to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.

To can Jott a message to Sandy from your phone. If you’ve got a Jott account, call Jott as usual, and when Jott asks you whom you want to Jott, say “Sandy”, and then proceed as usual.

Is your head spinning? Don’t worry, you don’t have to change or update all the settings at once. All you have to know to start is that once you have your personalized email address at which to send Sandy notes, you can tell her what you want, and she’ll get back to you at the right time. You can tell Sandy to:

• Remember a generic something: “Remember Stupid Airlines frequent flyer number is 6660666”
• Set a specific reminder: “Remind me to take recycling to the curb on Sunday night”
• Repeat a reminder, appointment, or to-doitem by using the @ sign to designate frequency: “Remind me to pay Capital One Visa bill on 7/14 @monthly”
• Add a variety of things like:

Look around your computer. What “To Do” or “honey-do” notes do you see? How many of them have been there longer than two days? And how well are they doing at reminding you of anything? (In other words, did they become wallpaper two minutes after they were put up or laid down?) If you’re not in the market for a living, breathing, taking-a-day-off-because-he-broke-up-with-his-significant-other kind of assistant, consider giving Sandy a try. You don’t even have to buy her a holiday present, give her vacation days or pretend to be interested in pictures of her pet iguana.

Mr. Tudball, Murphy Brown and our friends and the 4077th would be so proud.