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10 Productive (& Grown-Up) Ways to Remind Yourself of What You Need and Want to Accomplish

19th March, 2010 - Posted by Meggin - No Comments

Sometimes even the best intentioned folks forget to do something. It is not malicious, it’s just unfortunate. Use any or all of these ideas when you’re concerned about remembering something (and we all need to be concerned about this).

Put the item on your planner (PDA or paper) and then LOOK at your planner every day. So, first, you have to have a planner system. Second, you have to record the item. Third, you have to look at it. Amazingly, it is the last one that trips people up most.

If it’s something that’s happening today, don’t forget the value of a good old-fashioned kitchen timer. If you need to remember to leave to go pick up your son in 45 minutes, set your timer to go off in 45 minutes.

Call your home phone and leave a message for yourself, especially when you want to remember to bring something to work from home. You’ll see the flashing light when you walk in – and when you listen to the message, you should just go get what you need to take tomorrow and put it in your car. Remember, this is a REMINDER to do something. So do it.

If you have Outlook or another similar program, put it in the calendar so you’ll see it immediately upon opening the program. This works when you are going to be sitting in front of your computer.

Use your cell phone alarm. Remember that you can set this for a one-time event, or to call you every Wednesday just before the morning meeting. Most of us always have our cell phones with us, so this system works great.

Have your assistant call you on your cell phone. You can also have him/her call you on another line if that works better.

Pay a reliable teenager in your family to call you just prior to the event. Charge them the agreed-upon price if they forget. (One of my good friends who has teenagers uses this and it works!)

Place the ever-popular Post-It® in the middle of your computer monitor. Note: This will only work if it’s the ONLY sticky note on your monitor and if you essentially never use this method!

Put a note in your ticker file (your 1-31, day-at-a-time file) and then LOOK in this file every day. This happens to be my used method of choice…at least to get me to the right day. Then I may use one of the other methods if I’m worried about remembering. For example, when I fly Southwest, it is imperative (in my mind) that I have an A boarding pass, so I make sure to set a sound-type reminder to tell me it’s 8:35 or whatever time that is 24 hours prior to my flight. You do what you “gotta” do.

Pay close attention to the item as you hear about it. It is surprising how much you can remember if you really concentrate.

Forgetting is sometimes an annoyance, sometimes an embarrassment, and sometimes a deal-breaker. Use a system that works for you.

And for scores (and soon hundreds) of sets of Top Ten Productivity Tips like these, you’re invited to join others around the globe who subscribe (free) to one of the Top Ten Productivity Tips series (info to be found at):

** http://TopTenProductivityTips.com

(c) 2010 Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D. | The Ph.D. of Productivity(tm)