My ADHD Brain: Reminder Systems

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video I'll review all of the systems and apps that I use for reminders.  This is part of a series on my ADHD brain and all of the systems I use to compensate for a lack of internal structure and organization.  

Okay -- if you've seen other videos in this series, you know that I use a bunch of systems to help me remember events, tasks and correspondence.  I rely heavily on three tools: Gmail (single stream email), Google Calendar (scheduling), and Toodledo (task management).  I commit to checking these 3 apps daily and keeping up with my commitments for each.  

But even so, some things were still falling through the cracks. So, in some cases I needed additional help to plug the holes. 

Timers

Okay, so I'm very distractable. If I put a load of laundry in, it could be days later when I realize I haven't moved the wet clothes to the dryer. Yuck.  Partially for this reason, I like to do all of my laundry on one day of the week, but the only way to accomplish that with my inherent distractabily is to set timers.  I used to use my oven timer for this, but now I either use my watch or my iPhone. I prefer to set timers using Siri. Watch this -- "Hey, Siri.  Set the timer for an hour."  I also use this when monitoring homework breaks for my kids or putting the sprinkler on the garden. Or reminding myself to leave the house -- or I'd be late to every appointment!

Google Calendar

Or what about this?  Say I have a task that needs to be accomplished at a certain time. Like setting out donations for pick up by 7am. This would normally belong on my task list in Toodledo, but I'm never going to remember to do that by 7 in the morning. So, in these cases I will create appointment on Google Calendar for 6:30am to "Set out donations".  Then I will use Google Calendar's notification system to remind me in a couple of ways.  I  can't do this from the iPhone or iPad calendar app, so I go onto Google Calendar in a browser and put in the appointment and then scroll down to Notifications. I set on Notification for the time of event -- that will make a pop up on my iPhone or browser, but more importantly, I have Google Calendar send me an email at the time. Perhaps it's overkill, but you gotta do what you gotta do!

Memotome.com

I monitor my email more than any other service, since it's my single information stream (see my video on this). There are a couple of daily or weekly tasks that I like to have sent directly to my mailbox. For example, I fill out a form on a website every day. It only takes 30 seconds so I like to do that as I'm going through my emails. Memotome.com is a free web-based service that will send an email with the website URL imbedded in the mail.

Bigdates.com

I'm not much of a birthday person. My family of origin didn't do big birthdays. In fact, for my 10th birthday, my parents got me a paperback dictionary. That's it — true story. Anyway, because we didn't make a fuss over birthdays growing up, I'm not particularly good at remembering other people's birthdays. Unfortunately for me, I married into a family that believes they are VERY important. You can imagine that the combination of my not making a fuss and my not remembering did NOT go over very well for the first several years of marriage. I just can't will myself to remember these dates, so I use bigdates.com as my reminder system. There's a small fee (less than $1 per month for an annual subscription — which is totally worth it to me to stay out of hot water. Bigdates.com as you can tell by the name, is specifically designed to help remember dates like birthdays and anniversaries.  You go to their website and enter all of your friends' and family members' birthdays into the system.  Then indicate whether you want just a day of reminder or to be reminded 3, 7, 14 and/or 30 days before the event. Then, I get an email like this on birthdays, Mother's and Father's Day and anniversaries. I don't delete it from my inbox until I've texted, called, or otherwise acknowledged the day. Even better, for designated people, I have bigdates.com remind me a week or two in advance. That gives me time to send a card, get a gift, or plan a celebratory lunch. All of a sudden, I've gone from person least likely to remember an important event, to person least likely to forget! Just a note – of course I could rig my other task systems to help me out here: by putting a reoccurring annual task into Toodledo for example or making an appointment in Google Calendar with a reminder, but I vastly prefer the simplicity of the bigdates.com system and having it all in one place.  It was too complicated to go in and change for events that don't happen on the same day each year like Mother's Day. AND I like that they come directly to my email inbox, so I'm more likely to handle them on the day that they happen.

Low Tech

Technology is great, but sometimes I just need a sticky note to remind me to pack something in the fridge before I leave for the day or to give someone a call. I've also been known to write on my hand or tape a note on my purse.  

I'd love to hear what systems you use!  Thanks so much for watching and I really appreciate any comments you leave below!