Remember The Milk is not the name of a strange rock band. It's an online to-do list application that seamlessly merges with your workflow. Easy to use and even easier on the eyes, this web-application is - best of all - free. A single click can create tasks. Once created, you can add details like due dates, time estimates, locations, URLs and notes. Those fond of tagging will love the robust support for these: It remembers your tags so you don't need to keep keying it in those you use often. You can also send an e-mail note with all the information to a special address to automatically create a task. Google users are in luck: You can access your tasks right from Gmail, iGoogle and Google Calendar. Lists can also be created. A useful feature is smart lists: save your searches in the different fields as dynamic lists. What this means is that, if you wish, you could quickly produce a list of all the hour-long tasks that are due the week after next. Managing tasks is also a breeze. Keyboard shortcuts let you blitz through your tasks. Quickly access and change the details of the tasks without needing to use the mouse.

Plus, with Remember The Milk, you can configure the web-application to e-mail you weeks, days or even hours before your deadline. Reminders can also be sent to you via instant messages. A word of warning: It's all too easy to postpone tasks, so resist the temptation to hit the letter P! Remember The Milk can also send SMS notifications too. Unfortunately, only certain subscribers are supported for now. But don't despair: Remember The Milk also works well with Twitter, the micro-blogging site that lets you update short posts, even via SMS. This means that anyone can receive SMS updates from Remember The Milk. This work-around also lets you do far more than just receive notifications. There are surprisingly powerful tools available for Remember The Milk-Twitter services: creation of to-dos, and calling for tasks according to lists, due dates and even locations can be done.

Get It Going

Step 1. Make sure your Remember The Milk and Twitter accounts are up and running.

Step 2. Visit http://www.rememberthemilk.com/services/twitter. Key in your Twitter user name to get an activation code.

Step 3. Go to Twitter and follow the profile rtm. Send the activation code to that account as a direct message (or key in d rtm [code] into the main Twitter box).

Step 4. Visit http://twitter.com./devices and key in your mobile/cell number. Follow the instructions and you are done.

Make sure that you have set your device updates to either On or Direct Messages. Try sending a Twitter (or SMS) with d rtm remember the milk tomorrow. The system will be able to create the task with a due date for the next day. http://www.rememberthemilk.com/services/twitter/ has a whole list of commands you can use from Twitter and also from your mobile phone. Just bear in mind that while the SMS notifications received are free, sending commands to the Twitter number incurs an overseas SMS cost.