To Do application with task-specific reminder options?

March 22, 2007 12:05 PM

Is there a To Do/task list application that offers reminder options per task?

There are a lot of To Do applications out there, and I've poked around in a few of them. (Remember The Milk, Zoho Planner, Todoist, Backpack, Vitalist -- which is my favorite so far-- etc.) Most of them offer to send you reminders for your tasks, and most of them allow you to choose to receive these reminders by email, text message, or both. However, I haven't yet found one that allows me to choose a reminder method PER TASK. If you set it to email you your reminders, you have no choice but to get ALL of your reminders by email.

I generally prefer to receive my reminders by email, since I don't have a PDA and don't want to pay for text messages all the time or have to buy a bundle package. So I always set my option to email. But! Sometimes, there are certain tasks that I would like to be reminded of by text message instead of or in addition to email. For example, "Charge cell phone." Or, when I know I won't be at my computer that night, "Call so-and-so".

So does anyone know of a (web) To Do/task list application that offers task-specific reminder options?

posted by thatgirl to computers & internet (8 comments total)

If the emails contain as a subject the name of the task, you could use a keyword or keystring in the task names you want texted to you. Then just set up a rule in your email to forward anything with that string in the subject to your phone.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 12:10 PM on March 22, 2007

Basecamp lets you set reminders per task, although I'm not sure if it sends text messages.
posted by lemuria at 12:27 PM on March 22, 2007

google calender is awesome at this. It can send email reminders and sms reminders. You can even set things to recur once of a month/week/year...

I'm a big fan.
posted by jourman2 at 12:32 PM on March 22, 2007

scratch the "of"
posted by jourman2 at 12:33 PM on March 22, 2007

sorry, rereading your question you want options for reminder. Google calendar doesn't do that but Yahoo calendar will.
posted by jourman2 at 2:48 PM on March 22, 2007

It's a bit of a kludge, but what about setting up 2 accounts on the same service, one with email notifications and one with SMS? I'm not sure which of the services you mention would be best for setting this up in a way that items could be easily shared between accounts, but you probably wouldn't want to do it on Vitalist (which I'm checking out right now, thanks!) since you'd apparently need 2 paid accounts for a total of $10 a month to share actions.

I also like dirtynumbangelboy's suggestion of using a flag in the task's name so your email client can handle the SMSing. (Not everyone seems to be aware of it, but all the major cellular carriers have an email address associated with each phone number. For example, I'm on Verizon and know that any Verizon customer can be SMS'ed by sending email to [10digitphonenumber]@vtext.com )
posted by contraption at 3:34 PM on March 22, 2007

I think I'll probably use the forwarding method for now; that's a good idea and pretty easy, as long as I can remember to use the keyword in the task.

The two account idea is good, too, but sounds like a little too much effort for my lazy self.

Yahoo Calendar does appear do what I want... it's too bad I really don't like Yahoo Calendar.

(I do use and like Google Calendar for certain purposes, but not for my to-do list/project management.)
posted by thatgirl at 9:50 PM on March 23, 2007

Followup: Guess what Google Calendar has now? Yep, event-specific reminder options. (You have your default options, but for every event you can stray from the default and choose up to two reminder methods/times.) Okay, it's not really a task list application, but it's better than a kick in the teeth!
posted by thatgirl at 9:03 PM on May 29, 2007