Productivity Series: Reminders Lists

I use the Reminders app in a few ways that others do not. To me, Reminders is a to-do list app. But I also use it to store ideas. Just about anyone who does something creative can use ideas lists. This is part of a series where I share some of my own productivity methods.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how I use the Reminders App. MacMost is brought to you thanks to a great group of more than 1000 supporters. Go to MacMost.com/patreon. There you can read more about the Patreon Campaign. Join us and get exclusive content and course discounts.
So here's another video in my series about Productivity. This is how I get things done on my Mac and hopefully you can get some ideas from how I like to work. So here's how I make use of the Reminders App. I know a lot of people use the Reminders App to do exactly what the title suggests. They set reminders for themselves. That's perfectly fine. I do that too. But in addition to that I use it for two other things. One is to create To Do Lists. Another is to create Idea Lists.
Now first a To Do List. This is probably the second most popular thing to do with Reminders. A lot of people do it but not everybody thinks to use Reminders this way. Whenever I have a task that I need to do I'll put it in a To Do List. Now you could have a daily To Do List, that's fine. I tend to just have an ongoing To Do List. These are things that I need to do, at some point, maybe later today, maybe next week, and I want to put them in the list so I don't forget. At least once a day I go through my To Do List and see what items are there and what I could maybe accomplished today. What I'm really using this for is to get something out of my head. When I think I need to do something if I don't write it down somewhere I'm always thinking about it. I try to remember to do it and it's distracting me from doing other things. If I put it in this list I can get it out of my head knowing that I'm not going to forget about it. I'm going to see it again the next time I look at my To Do List. Now this is my Demo account. In reality I actually have several To Do Lists. For instance I have one that pertains to MacMost for getting things done with the MacMost site, YouTube channel and so on. I have another one that has to do with mobile apps and other websites that I maintain. So this way if I'm at the end of the week and I decide to switch gears from working on MacMost stuff to working to something that needs to be done in one of my mobile apps I could look at that specific list to see what's on it.
Now another thing that I use Reminders for that's more unusual is for Idea Lists. So a lot of times people ask me how do I get the ideas to do daily videos for MacMost. Well, I get inspiration all the time from things I see, things I read, things I try out on my Mac. Whenever I get an idea I put it in a list named MacMost Episode Ideas. I just add it in there. I don't think too much about whether it's a good idea, a bad idea, whether I will be doing it or not. I just add it to the list. The actual List in my real account is more than 100 items deep. Now when I go to create a new MacMost video, if I'm not already thinking of an idea, I can just go to this list and look through it to see what's there. You could use this for whatever work you do. For instance say you write fiction. You can have idea lists just for characters, for plot lines, for scenes, for all sorts of things. Anything you think of that's interesting put it into a list in Reminders. I know writers and comedians and all sorts of creative people use little notebooks to keep ideas like this. I like to do it on the computer. I can even do it on my iPhone when I'm on the go so that it appears in my Reminders List on my Mac. Sometimes I review these Idea Lists and To Do Lists while I'm on the go on my iPhone. It gets me thinking about things if I have down time like waiting in line or between innings in a baseball game. That kind of thing.
I also like to use the Note feature inside Reminders. You go in here and you can write a note with all sorts of details. So if it's an idea for a video and I've got some thoughts on what I should include I can put it here in Notes. You could actually include a lot of information in Notes. You can write line after line of things and you'll be able to see them here on your Mac and your other devices as well. So I hope this also gives you some ideas on how you can use Reminders as well.

Comments: 5 Responses to “Productivity Series: Reminders Lists”

Jack

3 years ago

Hi Gary, I haven’t been able to get used to using the Reminders app, though I’ve tried a few times over the years. I create lists in Notes (especially now that it offers the checklist option). What are some key advantages or differences that Reminders has over using the Notes app as a checklist organizer?

Gary Rosenzweig

Jack: Reminders can have dates/times for deadlines, a "note" that is part of it, but not the main thing you see. You can easily rearrange in the list and move to other lists, you can easily add with Siri, check them off and they disappear but can be brought back. Notes are more free-form little documents good for other things. Lots of other little differences. If a thing is a true list and nothing more or less, I use Reminders. Otherwise I use Notes.

Baxter

Importing long list to reminders. I had a list in a numbers spreadsheet. I concatenated the order number into the items such as "1 Hold Mail" , thus will be able sort them later in reminders. Highlight the cells and print to a PDF file. Open the PDF file, copy all rows and paste into notes. Highlight all items, click checklist option. Now highlight all checklist items and create new reminder and paste checklist to create reminder for each item. Hope this is useful. Find all you videos helpful.

Debra

Thanks Gary, love all your tutorials and love Reminders! Besides my "Do Now", "Do Next" and "Do Whenever"lists, I also have multiple idea lists. But one of my most useful list has been the one I started a few years ago - "Loaned Out." Whenever I loan anything to anybody, I add it it to that list. With loans, time goes by. I forget. They forget. So many things I'll never see again. Not anymore! If I can't locate something, I check my list . . .

Gary Travers

I use Reminders a lot, similarly to you, Gary. I have an Inbox, put everything in it that’s on my mind, then check it a couple of times a day and then distribute to my calendar etc. I also use it for checklists, of which I have many. It’s quite therapeutic checking off items as go through a checklist, it makes sure I don’t miss anything. Great video and great series.

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Productivity Series: Reminders Lists

Comments: 5 Responses to “Productivity Series: Reminders Lists”

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