Remember the Milk

I may have just eliminated my need for a paper planner!  I have had a paper planner for as long as I can remember.  All through out middle school up through college my favorite part of August (other than my birthday) was picking out a new planner!!

Now that I am a home manager the need for a planner is even bigger.  So far I have depended on Google Calendar, my iPad, and a paper planner to stay organized.  I've tried to use larger planner systems, but it never quite worked out.  The problem has been I don't always have my iPad and I don't always have my paper planner to write things down in.  Enter the iPhone!  Verizon recently changed their data plan and I was able to finally buy an iPhone with some left over Christmas money that was collecting dust.  Now my Google Calendar is ALWAYS with me :)

Last week my sister was telling me about a list app that she was enjoying and I remembered that Simple Mom had suggested Remember the Milk years ago.  I decided to try it again since it now has an iPhone and iPad app.  It has been wonderful!  I decided to splurge and get a pro account so that my lists would always be synced across my devices, but this is definitely not necessary.

I love this task manager for a couple of reasons:

• you can organize tasks by lists.  So far I have: Blog posts to write, Evening Routine, Gift Ideas, Home Management, Kids, Money Matters, Morning Routine, School, Study, and Tidy Up Tuesday.  There are also two default lists of "Inbox" for routines you email yourself (or Siri sets up for you) and "Sent" which I think is used for tasks you share with others.
• you can use shortcuts to set up when a list is due, priority, when it repeats, where it takes place, and to add tags.  Tags help you to sort your task based on subject.  I have a tag for computer tasks that I use to help me get things done while I'm at the computer.  You can also use tags to sort by tasks that you have for different children.  Here is the list of shortcuts:

          If you wanted to use these shortcuts it would type this in the "add a new task" section of the website:  "Call Betsy ^tomorrow !2 *weekly"  Then a new task will be created with all of the parameters you have specified.  You can also email this to your RTM account and it will set up the task for you.

• you can also set a task to repeat based on when it was last done instead of just when it was last due.  This is helpful for things like taking your vitamins.  You want to take them once a day, but if you forget them today you don't want to take two tomorrow.
• you can associate notes or a URL with each task.  I do my grocery shopping on Monday, so I have a reminder on Sunday night to do my meal planning.    I use the note feature to keep track of meals that I see during the week that I think would be interesting.   

Even if you don't have a smart phone remember the milk can send you text messages or email reminders when tasks are due.  I choose to do most of my household cleaning on Tuesday hence the list "Tidy up Tuesday" I have a morning and evening routine based on Tsh's book 52 projects to a simpler life.  She encouraged readers to choose 3 to 5 things you do every morning and every evening. this helps bring structure to an otherwise unstructured day.
 Here is a view of my current account:

I have just started using Tsh's suggestion of identifying three things a day that are your most important tasks and marking them priority 1 (orange in color).  I do not mark anything else with that priority so that each day I can choose three new things.

Please ask any other questions you have in the comments section.  I hope I've given a quick overview and have helped you get started with this great website!

RSS Reader

Sometime last year my friend Meg introduced me to a beautiful thing....an RSS reader.  Now, I consider myself a technical gal.  I like pretty much all things technology and I had heard of an RSS feed before.  I had seen the little RSS icon:

But what is it?  How do you use it?  Well, that my friends is what I'm about to tell you.  RSS stands for RDF site summary, but really it means updates from a website sent straight to your feed (we'll get to what a feed is in a minute).  I love to read multiple blogs.  I have friends who have blogs, but I also love blogs of people I don't know, but that have really interesting content.  An RSS feed allows you to receive all of the updates from all of the blogs that you like to read in one place.  Think of it like a subscription to all of your favorite blogs or websites.  Instead of having to search out new content from the places you like, all of the new updates are sent directly to you!

Where is this "place" that the updates are sent?  Most blogs will allow you to receive email updates, but what is neat about readers is that they do not clog up your email inbox.  Instead the updates are stored in a second location and you can read them at your leisure.  I am currently registered with Google Reader.  Google Reader is where I subscribe to all the different blogs that I like.  Anytime any of my favorite blogs posts something new the updates come straight to my reader.  Now, I can read these updates on any computer (since Google is internet based), but I choose to read them on my iPad using a free app called Mobile RSS.  This app downloads my recent updates to my iPad and allows me to read items in my feed even when I am not connected to the internet (score!).

If you like to read multiple blogs I really think using a reader can simply your life and cut down on the amount of time you just "poke" on the internet.  Once you are signed up with a reader service add the blogs you like by typing in the web addresses or just look for the RSS symbol above and subscribe!  Here is what the icon for Google reader looks like:
 
Do you use an RSS reader that isn't Mobile RSS or Google Reader?  I'd love to hear about the different readers that are out there.

My iPad!!!!!!

For Mother's Day my husband bought me this iPad and I love it!!  It is by far my favorite thing lately.  But instead of writing a review about the actual iPad, I would like to say a few things about my favorite apps.

This idea came to me when my sister was here this past weekend.  She has an iPhone and one afternoon we sat down and compared apps.  I know that I have a few other friends out there that have iPads or iPhones and I want to share my favorite apps and then hear from you about your favorites!

The above picture is my first homepage and I thought that would be a good place to start.

Baby Geek
Down in my system tray is my favorite and most useful app so far: Baby Geek.  This app helps me keep track of my new little one's schedule and activities.  My favorite part is the graphs that it creates.  I can see a graph of EVERYTHING! How often he sleeps, when he sleeps, when he eats, how long he eats, etc.  I have even put in the growth data for Ethan and I can compare (via a graph) Ethan and Asher's weight, length and head circumference!  I can't really say enough about this program.  Also, the customer service is GREAT!  I had an issue an emailed the support on a Saturday.  Within 4 hours I had two emails trying to help me fix it.  Best $.99 I've spent in a long time!

Here are just two of the types of graphs (yes, you can email them too):

The first two rows of apps (and the rest of them that are in my system tray) come with every iPad so I'm not going to review those.

The Weather Channel
This app was free and I really like to use it for the daily and weekly forecast.

iPad Guide
This is not really an app it is just a bookmark to an online tutorial for the iPad.  It has come in pretty handy at times.

Weather Bug
This app was also free (I don't pay for apps often) and it has a great radar display.  I like it 100% better then the Weather Channel's and that is why I have two weather apps.

USAA
If you are a USAA member you can do a lot of online banking with this app.  I love being able to pay my bills from my iPad.  (Note: USAA is a member only insurance and banking organization for military personnel and their families.)

Pandora and eBay
These are just app versions of their online counterparts.

This ends part 1 of my iPad app reviews!  I hope you have enjoyed it so far.  Do you have an iPad or iPhone?  What are your favorite apps?  Please share!!