Balachandar

Simplified Productivity: Twitter + RTM + imified

// October 3rd, 2007 // Tools & Web Apps, twitter

Trust me. This is not simply a post to say that I know things. But this works. I’ve been using this for the last 4 months personally and within a team environment. This combination works great every time. Simple, reliable, and on time.
Everyone use different methods to keep track of to-dos’ and tasks. There are

» people who use a diary and a scribble tasks
» people who use sticky notes
» people who use outlook calendar/ lotus notes calendar
» people who use Google calendar/online to-do list managers

and finally there’s this group of people who use “Twitter + Remember the milk + imified” to make their life simple and better. Well, there’s 100’s of services in the second world of web. What’s so special about this?

Look at my concerns now

» Will I be able to add a task without a computer?
» Well, I’m in a pc. But I’m jus chatting. Something came into my mind all of a sudden. How easy is it for me to add this task to my to-do list manager?
» I want to assign this task to my bro or to my team. How can I do that?
» Well, I have added everything. But what next? Will my to-do list manager alert me back in any other form other than an email?

Twitter + RTM does everything that I mentioned above and a dozen more. The complex thing about creating a to-do list is in analyzing how easy it is for me to create a task. I should be able to do that from my loo, from my gym or from anywhere. Even if I’m in front of the computer I don’t want to open my lotus notes>calendar>new task>fill in details.. nope. That’s really tough. With Twitter and RTM combination, I can create tasks from my mobile with an SMS (no need of GPRS), or from my chat client (gtalk, msn), or from desktop widgets and gadgets (twitterfic, twitterlicious), or directly from the website itself. The list of twitter tools is huge. Explore it yourself.

I can assign a task to my colleague and track it. I get periodic customized alerts and reminders in SMS, Chat Messages and emails. Content Contribution and consumption is much easier. To start with, you need to

1. Register with Twitter
2. Enable your mobile alerts in twitter account notification settings (If you face any problems here, this post might help)
3. Register with Remember the milk (RTM).
4. Add RTM’s twitter buddy to your Twitter Friends list
5. Add twitter@twitter.com or imified@imified.com to your chat client (gtalk)

That’s it. Now life is easier. The following illustration should help. Lets see how easy is it to create a task. The right side green container is a list of tools from which you can tweet. These tools can be in a webpage, a desktop widget, a mobile application or simply a SMS.

Creating a Task for your buddy is the same as above, but some changes in the message that you tweet. You have to address to whom you’re assigning the task to.

Now Reminders. You choose what you want. SMS, Chat messenger or email? I prefer all and it works.