TechLifeWeb

I’m a big fan of the web app Remember the Milk. I love how flexible it is at letting you manage your tasks the way you want. One of the biggest struggles in any system you use is ubiquitous capture. That is, being able to capture an idea or task where ever you are.

A while back, I got to thinking that it would be really cool if I could quickly create a task in Remember the Milk (RTM) via SMS. RTM on the various mobile platforms is great but this way is even faster (for me at least) and you can do it from any SMS enabled phone. The magic that let me realize this dream is the wonderful IFTTT (If this then that) service.  It isn’t hard to set up as long as you have all the right pieces in place.

The things you’ll need are: Your RTM inbox address, an SMS capable phone, a Gmail account and an IFTTT account.

So, to get started, you’ll need your RTM inbox address. Get that by looking in the info tab of the settings section.

Next, go over to IFTTT and create an account if you haven’t already. Then click on Channels and go through the set up process to create an SMS channel and a Gmail channel.

Once all that is set up, head over to my channel http://ifttt.com/recipes/49882 You’ll need to put your RTM inbox address in the “To Address” field. That’s all your really have to do. It isn’t necessary to alter the body section. New SMS’s will go right into you RTM inbox.

Personally, I have other ways my RTM is set up so I don’t like email going into the inbox if there is no need. No reason to clear out a second inbox if I don’t have to. I have a catchall list called Central so I like to use that. I also like to automatically make these next actions so I pre-populate the tags section. You can add several tags separated by comma.

This is all based on the syntax RTM uses for mailed in tasks. More details on that if you haven’t used it is here: https://www.rememberthemilk.com/services/email/#inbox

So for example, this is how I have the Body section of my IFTTT channel filled out:

List: Central<br>
Priority:<br>
Due:<br>
Repeat:<br>
Estimate:<br>
Tags: next<br>
Location:<br>
URL:<br>
—<br>
{{ReceivedAt}}

Hope this helps you be more productive!