Makin' a list and Jottin' it twice

Oh. My. God.

This could be life-altering.

I can't really say that I'm an inveterate list-maker, but I am an inveterate list-loser. If I had a nickel for every list I've started and lost....well, I wouldn't be sitting here doing work things at 11:45 on a Sunday night with the temperature a lovely six below zero. I completely love the idea of lists, but the actual implementation of them is where I sort of fall down. [Click here for a book that, by strange coincidence, I happen to be reading at the mo.]

I don't just love to-do lists. I am prone to making lists of all kinds, and some of these now exist in my brand-new Remember the Milk account. Such as Wish List (things I don't have, but want like an iPod and a microplane grater), Organizing Needs (things I don't have, but need to solve an organizing problem at home, like a container to corrall my various electronic device chargers) and MP3s (songs I would put on that iPod, like Radar Love and Thunder Road.)

I rely heavily on my PalmPilot to keep me organized, but one feature I have never had much luck using is the To-Do list. Much as I liked the idea of having all my to-dos in one spot, with no pesky paper scraps to lose, it has just never worked for me to do all of that data entry. I'm not entirely sure that RTM will work any better for me, but I'm willing to give it a go. At a bare minimum, I can type a lot faster than I can write with a stylus.

I find the interface to be a little clunky, and it seriously bothers me how things jump and move when you mouse over them. I think it will take a while for the whole thing to become second-nature, and to start using all of the functionality to its fullest capacity. For a start, though, I can envision reading my email with RTM open in another window, transfering to-dos into it and DELETING the email instead of leaving it in my inbox to get lost among the other email clutter. That's something.

One problem I can foresee, especially at home, is that I don't always happen to have the computer on when I need to make note of a to-do. Oh, wait, that's where Jott comes in, right? I must say, though, that calling Jott from my cell phone to remind myself to buy toilet paper while I'm sitting in my living room approaches the bounds of the surreal for me.

Jott transcribed the Jotts I sent perfectly, but for giggles I want to try out a few accents and see what happens. I noticed some goofs in the Project Play list, such as where someone who clearly meant "bring the wood in" got transcribed as "bring the wooden." (Bring the wooden.....what? And where should I bring it?)

Cool as all this is, my problems with information overload continue. So now, besides my work email and personal email, I also have inboxes on RTM and Jott. How many inboxes does one person really need?

This could all be even slicker if I didn't have a geriatric Palm that does not have Internet capabilities. Maybe I need to put a Palm upgrade on my Wish List. Or maybe what I really need is an iPhone, so I could send myself a Jott, which I could access on the iPhone, reminding myself to download The Farmer and the Cowman Should be Friends, which would go into my MP3 list on RTM, and which would prompt me to put the song...on the iPhone.

Is that full circle, or just way too complicated?