I’m a bit of a procrastinator, so occasionally, like Arnold J. Rimmer, I feel guilty and disorganized and madly attempt to correct the situation. One way I do this, other than neatly coloured monthly schedules, is using a task list. My main use of a task list is for long-term planning, e.g. upcoming tasks, things I’d like to accomplish, blue-sky ideas. Typically I do that once, and then forget about it until the next crisis of organization. In a Ph.D. program, goals are often vague and completely self-determined. This task list is a handy way of keeping a central record of what I should be accomplishing.
As an aside, another record-keeping device I often wonder about is note-taking. Like task lists, I have a habit of making notes in meetings, when reading papers, on the subway, etc. Also like task lists, I almost never refer back to these notes. There was a student at my high school who would never take notes in class, but always did well (okay, Bs) on tests. My guess is that the idea you have tends to percolate in your brain. If it’s good, and pressing, then it comes to the fore of its own accord. I maintain a personal Wiki with a number of private research notes, but I rarely look over these ideas. I once considered writing some code to parse such a collection of notes, and periodically email them to myself as a reminder service.
Anyway, back to the task list. I do find them useful, and the best application I’ve used — other than pencil and paper — is rememberthemilk.com. It’s an AJAX web application that is incredibly user friendly — even better than Google’s UIs, IMO. Today I discovered they’ve added location-based tasks with a Google Maps layer. I’m not sure I’ll use this feature all that often — most of my tasks are very research-specific, so they take place in my brain(!). What I’m more impressed with is the programming and UI design they used (I believe it’s two people in Australia). For example, the map defaulted to Toronto for me. They either figured this from my time-zone, or from my IP. Furthermore, in another boost for standards, my tasks can be integrated into Google Calendar using the Webcal standard. I can see due dates etc. on my calendar. Very slick.
A question for them, though: What is their business model? Hosting fees can’t be that cheap (even if they mainly serve text). My brother is in Sydney now and internet access there seems very expensive. There are no ads, so they must be hoping to be bought out by someone.
Anyway, the service is great, fills my needs. And helps me keep track of my personal tasks, when I remember to check.
Tags: ajax, General, pim, task
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