I’m always excited when I find a solution to a problem that works within my existing workflow. For example, I’ll be attending the Nine Inch Nails show at the IZOD center tomorrow night and I need to remember to bring the tickets. Because for one I’ll be leaving from work so I need to grab them first thing in the morning and two, my memory is crap. I’ve tried various reminder services in the past, but since they don’t fit into my existing workflow I always forget to use them. Ironic, I know.
Since I’m an avid Twitter user and Twitter is a notifcation/messaging service, I thought it would be great if I could tell Twitter to send me a reminder at a particular time to remember the tickets. A quick Google search later and I discover timer. A Twitter bot that serves this exact purpose. Add timer to your following list and send it a direct message with the minute count of when you’d like to be notified and the message you’d like to receive in the following format “d timer 30 Remind me about that thing”. You’ll then be reminded of that thing in 30 minutes via a direct message.
This really shines if you setup Twitter to notify of direct messages via SMS. This allows you to both set and receive reminders from anywhere via your cell.
One downside is you need to set your reminder time via minutes. So if you want to be reminded the next day at a particular time you need to figure out how many minutes that is. It would be great if you could set the units of time. For example, if you wanted to be reminded in two days of an event it would be cool if you could format it as “d timer 2d Do that thing you need to do”.
Other downsides revolve around the fact that this is done through Twitter (which as I’ve said is also the advantage). And Twitter is known for having it’s share of outages. So if Twitter is down, so are your reminders. There’s also no way to edit existing reminders or view the reminders you’ve set. But for me those are minor gripes.
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