Don’t Forget a Thing, REMind Yourself of Everything

Have you ever forgotten something small and had it blow up in your face?

Lately, I’ve been posting about energy, taking care of yourself, and developing habits. So, I thought I would teach you a simple habit today that has helped me in each of those areas. This habit, which I call the REM (or REMinder) system, has helped me to keep many small things small. It’s helped me to avoid forgetting those small things, having them turn into unnecessary blow-ups.

In my defense, it’s pretty easy to sweat the small things when you forget them.

Failure to schedule cost me an important day of my vacation

A few years ago, I was planning a trip to New Orleans with my wife, a little three-day weekend celebration. A week before departure I noticed I had a problem. I had a seminar in Seattle on Monday morning. I was supposed to be enjoying New Orleans through Sunday night. There were no flights that would allow me to magically leave Sunday night from New Orleans and get to Seattle on Sunday night, ready to get a good night’s sleep and be up and ready to talk Monday morning.

I ended up having to scrap a whole day of our planned vacation, turning the three-day into a two-day so I could fly back early and get to Seattle. My wife was very understanding, but I felt so guilty, and the weekend was way too short. Afterward, I said to myself, “What could I do to avoid this ever happening again?” Do you ever have those moments? I have a lot of them, but I try to from as many of them as I can.

The solution to this problem was to add a reminder to my REM system. You see, the REM system is made for dealing with loose ends and easily forgotten things. That task, for example, you’re almost finished with, but there’s just one thing left to check on—perfect for the REM system. The things you keep forgetting to do or check—also perfect.

How to set up the REM system for yourself and start getting the benefits

You don’t need much to get the REM system going. It’s just a daily habit to check your reminders and a discipline to enter new “things to remember” into the system.

I’m going to assume that you’re using Outlook to manage your time (many of us are) and tell you how to set up the REM system in that. I’m convinced you could do the REM system in any tool. Let me know if you’d like ideas about how to set it up in other tools (leave a comment), and I’ll be happy to let you know how to do it in other tools.

The REM system’s purpose is to remind yourself of loose ends (that’s why I call it REM, as in REM-inders, not because of the tendency to dream about loose ends if you don’t tie them up). Here’s the big idea: any time you have a loose end, tie it down by making a REM entry out of it.

I use this system constantly. For example, today I used the REM system to remind myself of a loose end around an expense report. I was working this morning on filing an unusual set of expenses. I just sent an email to all involved asking who I should send the receipts to. Right now the receipts are in a file folder, waiting for a destination. (And waiting to be forgotten, if I’m not careful.)

I want to make sure I have a REM for myself in the case I don’t hear back on my email. If they don’t get back to me, I won’t know where to send the receipts, and likely I’ll just forget to finish up this task at all. This might mean a new fire for me to put out when someone in accounts payable needs to close things out by the end of the month and is wondering why I never turned in this expense report.

Making a REM entry in Outlook is easy. (I assume you have a basic knowledge of Outlook, or are always looking for a new place to learn.) I want to remind myself to check back with the folks on the expenses if I hadn’t heard from them in a few days.

Here’s what I do:

• Go into Outlook and create a new task, titled REM.
• Set the due date to three days from now. (That’s when I want to be thinking, or acting, on it next).
• Enter in the note of the task: Have I heard back from J yet on the expense question?
• Save the task.

The second piece of the REM system is the habit of checking your REM tasks daily, before your day begins. I suggest that you start a daily habit to check in with your day, think about your priorities, etc. One part of that daily habit can be to check your task list for REM tasks for that day and process all of them.

So, each day, spend a moment glancing at your task list, sorted by due date. Today’s tasks should then pop to the top of the list. And you’ll see any REM tasks you have for today, where you can open each and process them.

As an example, three days from now, that REM task I just entered about the expense report will be at the top of the by due date task list. Since it will be due that day, I’ll open it. I’ll see the reminder about J and the expenses. If she’s gotten back to me, I’ll check off the REM task. The reminder is no longer necessary. Loose end is no longer loose.

If she hasn’t gotten back to me, I might call or send another email or call someone else. And I may want to set a REM task for 2-3 days from now to take an action if that loose end hasn’t been tied.

Here are some things I’m using the REM system for

Glancing at my current REM tasks, here are some of the things I’m currently reminding myself of:

• Have I heard back from L on a question?
• It’s now time (it’s been a week after a program I delivered) to call the client up and see how things went on their end and what they’d like to do next
• Have the books I ordered from Amazon that were supposed to be delivered by this date arrived yet?
• Have I spoken recently with someone I’m trying to stay in better contact with?
• Have I done my flossing yet for the week or do I need to focus on that for the next couple days to keep my habit up? (see my earlier post on the 5% Idea)

There are certainly other ways to remind yourself to do things, such as leaving sticky notes scattered around your office or entering your reminders directly on your calendar as calendar entries. The advantage of the REM system, I think, is that it’s very consistent, which sticky note reminders may not be. It’s something you just check daily, rather than have unnecessary appointments or Outlook reminders interrupting your focus all day. So if you use one of those systems, try out the REM system and tell me if it’s an improvement for you.

The solution to my travel mistake

If you’re curious about how I now avoid the travel problem I related earlier, here’s how. I have a reminder in my REM system that looks like this: (->1m) Check four weeks ahead for travel conflicts. The first part (in parentheses) is a reminder to repeat this reminder every month, so I’m always getting it and always checking my schedule for travel conflicts (helping me to make that a habit). Just this one reminder has saved me from several travel conflicts, and that’s been well worth the price of the reminder.

So try it out. Let me know how it goes as you improve your memory for the small stuff. I hope it helps.