Throughout my day, I get a lot of reminders, and they’re all from me. Some are related to work, others related to my personal life, and many are about keeping myself healthy, focused, and with my big picture in sight. Most are digital, but some are paper based. These reminders enable me to stay on track with my goals and daily tasks, while confidently not worrying about what I need to remember.
To-do reminders such as a phone call I need to make, a bill I need to pay, an errand I need to run, a project I need to work on, or something I need to follow up on with another person all end up in Omnifocus, where I can set the dates by which they need to be done. Reminders about those to-dos will pop up on my various devices so nothing gets missed.
All of my “dailies” (those daily habits that I try to complete everyday) are in Productive, which will remind me three times per day (for morning habits, afternoon habits, and evening habits) what I said I wanted to do.
Almost exactly two years ago I ended up in the emergency room with a rather large kidney store. Since then I try to make sure that I drink the amount of water recommended to me by the doctor in an effort to avoid a repeat of that particular misery. The app WaterMinder reminds me throughout the day, both on my phone and watch to drink water. I can easily track not only how much water I drink throughout the day, but also other fluids such as protein shakes, tea, milk, etc.
I have an AppleWatch so I receive reminders throughout the day to both stop what I’m doing and take some deep breaths, and get up and move. I work at a computer much of my day so these are both reminders to pause, breath, and move. These reminders, combined with the ones I receive to drink water, have made a positive difference in my overall health and well-being.
Several “personal / professional development” folks including Todd Henry and Brendon Burchard recommend using the alarm setting on your phone to send yourself custom messages throughout the day. I’ve tried a few of these, but am particularly fond of one that Henry mentioned in a recent podcast:
“Am I doing what I most need to be doing right now? Am I being who I most want to be right now?”
I have found these to be great questions to pull me back from too much social media time or from letting my mind wander too far down a negative trail.
I’ve mentioned before that I review my Personal Manifesto (another gem I picked up from Todd Henry) at least a couple of times a day. I can read it digitally on this blog or one of the paper versions that I have in my planner and hanging next to my desk at work. I get a reminder to do this in the morning and afternoon via Productive, but it’s what my Manifesto reminds me to do that shapes all the others. It reminds me of the person who I want to be and what I ultimately want to spend my life doing.
What sort of reminders do you leave yourself or what could you be doing?
