Organizational Tip #5 - Using your Smart Phone to Organize Repeated Tasks

One of the easiest ways to accomplish repetitive tasks it to use the reminders and alarms features on your smart phone.  Reminders and alarms allow you to create tasks you want to be reminded of at any time.  Set the day or days of the week, the time, or how often to repeat making them uniquely effective.  Here are some examples of how you can use reminders and alarms.  

Anyone who takes medicine that is extremely important to their health, say a heart medicine, can set an alarm to go off each day of the week at a specific time to remind you to take your medicine.  Exercising is another good example of an alarm to set.  Schedule the days of the week you want to go for a walk, or meet up with a friend for yoga class and make sure you follow through or schedule for a better day if you have to.

If there are tasks you would like to accomplish on a regular basis but sometimes forget, like giving the family dog a bath, set a reminder that repeats as often as you want to bathe the dog with a time that would normally be a convenient time for you.  When there are certain stops you need to make after work, say picking up your dry cleaning each Wednesday, set a reminder for Wednesdays just before you would normally leave work so it is the last thing on your mind as you walk out the door to your vehicle.

One of the nicest things about reminders and alarms is that they can help you schedule items you might not otherwise get to even though you want to.  How many times a day do we think about what we would do if we were at home instead of work?  For most people, even if we love our jobs, this happens often because we have so many things we want to accomplish each day.  Setting a reminder to read 25 pages in a book or read a magazine one day a week is a good way to set yourself up to accomplish this task instead of just wanting to because it makes room in your schedule.

Whatever you choose to set reminders and alarms for, the constant reminders can be extremely helpful in pushing you in the right direction to getting more done.  The beauty in using reminders and alarms is that they allow you to set the days, dates, and times to be reminded or alerted.  This gives you the best opportunity for success because only you know when is the best time for you to accomplish these tasks.  Remember not to set too many reminders or alarms at once, or you might overwhelm yourself, but a few a week is a good place to start.

Good luck and stay focused!

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