Entering Tasks on the Go? Here's the Easiest Way. (It's Your Smartwatch)

How easy is your digital task management system? It could be as easy as talking to your watch.

Recently, I showed you how I can add to my journal with my voice. I was doing it by simply talking to my watch. The results wound up in Evernote. In the blog post that accompanies what you’re hearing, I have a link that shows you exactly how I did it.

Today is a similar demonstration about how I had tasks to my digital task list with my voice, and I can even do it on my phone or my watch.

It is inspired, in part, by a comment a listen left on YouTube after hearing me mention this concept:

Eric writes:

What Smartwatch do you use, Frank? And how often do you REALLY use it to send yourself tasks?

My answer:

The answer to the first part is this: I have a Galaxy Watch4 bought two years ago.

The answer to the second part is that I use it to add tasks to my list multiple times every single day.

One of the long-standing principles I’ve had for myself since my senior year of high school is to write things down immediately.

A corollary to that principle is that I always have to have something to write on.

As a high school senior, the tool was an index card. Later it was a memo pad in my pocket. I used a Day-Timer for 10 years around 10 years. So, that Day-Timer was in my hand always.

What’s the parallel in the digital world?

If you’re like me, your phone is always with you. And to take it a step further, even if you don’t have your phone everywhere, you probably do have your watch.

It’s easy to speak a task into your watch and have it wind up on your task list.

My setup includes a combination of Google Assistant and If This Then That.

For the trigger in If This Then That, I use “SMS text.” My tablet has a phone number associated with it. I use that as the phone number I’ll use in the trigger. It will be the number to which I send the text.

For the action in If This Then That, I choose Remember The Milk. Here is what the action looks like in my setup:

I am using Google Assistant. You could use another smart assistant if that assistant worked with If This Then That or Zapier.

By the same token, if you use this technique with another task manager that has If This Then That integration.

Over time, tools change while some underlying principles stay the same. If you want to keep your commitments to yourself or others from falling through the cracks, write them down and have a tool that makes it easy to do.

It’s that easy, and the task list never forgets.

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