Best place to hold stuff I need to get to later on?
December 31, 2013 9:47 AM Subscribe
Every now and then I go through my inbox and clear it out. I create events in Google calendar whenever there is an item I need to address in the future. I've never been 100% happy with this non-system for reasons I can't properly define. Is there some better place to offload everything that integrates with Android and windows/any browser?
Something that I think is missing is flexible alerts. I need to have my attention drawn to these items periodically, but some have soft deadlines and can be postponed without penalty (and with a simple, easy interface). I really want a way to capture that flexibility--a simple method of responding to an alert with "remind again in one hour/day/week/month" would be great.
I also think a good interface for categorizing, tagging, and reordering/prioritizing would be helpful.
What's out there in the android ecosystem?
Something that I think is missing is flexible alerts. I need to have my attention drawn to these items periodically, but some have soft deadlines and can be postponed without penalty (and with a simple, easy interface). I really want a way to capture that flexibility--a simple method of responding to an alert with "remind again in one hour/day/week/month" would be great.
I also think a good interface for categorizing, tagging, and reordering/prioritizing would be helpful.
What's out there in the android ecosystem?
Evernote will likely work for your needs, though I haven't used the Android app (works great on iOS so I assume it would also be great on Android). Unfortunately the reminders are not available on the Windows desktop client, but should be there on the web and mobile apps. The reminders may not be as flexible as you're looking for. It's definitely a good interface for "categorizing, tagging, and reordering/prioritizing," though.
posted by Thoughtcrime at 10:38 AM on December 31, 2013
posted by Thoughtcrime at 10:38 AM on December 31, 2013
Here's a potential solution for any events that have email threads associated with them:
I use the Mailbox app for iOS, which lets you set times to defer emails - it gives fuzzy options like "tomorrow morning" or "next week" or even "sometime" (for things you want to hang on to but aren't urgent) - as well as more specific options such as "Jan 1 at 10:05 am". The email threads you delay are put into a specific folder in GMail and then don't show up in your inbox until the time you specified.
One downside is that I think you can only defer emails on your phone. However, the GMail plugin Boomerang also lets you defer emails from your computer, so you may want to look into that.
posted by estlin at 1:58 PM on December 31, 2013
I use the Mailbox app for iOS, which lets you set times to defer emails - it gives fuzzy options like "tomorrow morning" or "next week" or even "sometime" (for things you want to hang on to but aren't urgent) - as well as more specific options such as "Jan 1 at 10:05 am". The email threads you delay are put into a specific folder in GMail and then don't show up in your inbox until the time you specified.
One downside is that I think you can only defer emails on your phone. However, the GMail plugin Boomerang also lets you defer emails from your computer, so you may want to look into that.
posted by estlin at 1:58 PM on December 31, 2013
If you have an Android phone, Google Now coupled with Google Keep can help with some reminders. I frequently create notes in Keep that include reminders that pop up in Google Now.
posted by thadman at 11:42 AM on January 1, 2014
posted by thadman at 11:42 AM on January 1, 2014
The Any.do app might be helpful to you.
It doesn't integrate with gmail (sorry!) but you add items for 'today', 'tomorrow', 'upcoming' and 'someday'. Someday items do not have dates, and upcoming items are any with dates that are not today or tomorrow. Any.do automatically moves items from upcoming to tomorrow to today. There is also a 'plan your day' option that will, at your specified time, pop up each of today's items and give you the option of postponing or keeping it (and optionally specifying a time to remind you of that item).
Any.do
It also has a calendar app, although I'm not so taken with that.
I *heart* my Any.do!
posted by eloeth-starr at 6:17 PM on January 1, 2014
It doesn't integrate with gmail (sorry!) but you add items for 'today', 'tomorrow', 'upcoming' and 'someday'. Someday items do not have dates, and upcoming items are any with dates that are not today or tomorrow. Any.do automatically moves items from upcoming to tomorrow to today. There is also a 'plan your day' option that will, at your specified time, pop up each of today's items and give you the option of postponing or keeping it (and optionally specifying a time to remind you of that item).
Any.do
It also has a calendar app, although I'm not so taken with that.
I *heart* my Any.do!
posted by eloeth-starr at 6:17 PM on January 1, 2014
Response by poster: The killer, ideal feature for me is flexible rescheduling of reminders. Any.do is pretty good at this, but not perfect. Vastly superior to the calendar app, though. I'll take it!
posted by jsturgill at 11:39 PM on January 4, 2014
posted by jsturgill at 11:39 PM on January 4, 2014
Yes, Boomerang for Gmail is what you want.
They also have an Android app.
posted by dobbs at 11:44 AM on January 6, 2014
They also have an Android app.
posted by dobbs at 11:44 AM on January 6, 2014
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posted by deathpanels at 10:38 AM on December 31, 2013