Review: Remember The Milk

I???ve fallen in love. I???ve met the perfect task management tool, and I never want it to leave my sight. It???s called Remember The Milk, it???s been around since pretty much the dawn of Web 2.0, and it???s fabulous. Alright, I???ll take it easy with the disturbingly sincere affection I???ve developed for this incredibly nifty to-do list-making device, but I???m not going to stop talking about it, no way. Instead, I???ll do you a favor and introduce the two of you. Those of you who???ve met RTM before can read on for kicks too if you???d like, but chances are you???re as teeming with love as I am for the little wonder and wouldn???t mind another look at why it???s so damn good. Let???s go inside, shall we?

Whether you???re the pad-and-pencil type wishing to digitize or go from mess-maker to manager, you would no doubt like very much to get to the goal in as few steps as possible. Forget convoluted costly systems with bizarrely long learning curves. You want easy. And easy you will get with Remember The Milk in only a few minutes??? time.

Back in the day, I remember catching wind of RTM on one of the first tech podcasts to make headway during the earliest days of the dot-com rebound. I believe it was Amber Mac on Commandn who???d made note of its feeble existence. I guess it didn???t take long to become an underground hit after its first promotional blitz, but why has it yet to jump into the mainstream? Perhaps because it is the antithesis of Web 2.0???s biggest successes (YouTube, Myspace, etc.): it has been conditioned to play the part of the time-saver rather than time-waster. Oh dear. That???s okay, RTM, I love you for what you do, and that matters more than big VC money and traffic, right? Well, maybe not so much, but it goes something like that, I suppose.

Remember the Milk is a to-do list at heart, and though it now plays more a superhero than a pass?? app with checkboxes and text to show for, its likeness is still that of the ???little engine that could???. Sign up is as simple as can be, and they do away with the emailing of confirmation links, instead sending you useful information: where to email an item to have it added as a task, in the event that you just don???t feel like clicking a saved bookmark or typing a URL. For shame, lazy task-maker.

The options of what to do with your RTM list(s) are many. You can subscribe to them in iCal (Is it me, or is the new generation of web development finally taking the presence of Apple to heart? Me likely.) and automatically sync items by minutes, hours or days. See how quickly that came full-circle? Email item to list, subscribe to list with iCal, have iCal bug you about it at the moment you request to be bugged. When things work together so well, it sure does make you smile.

If making lists remotely and syncing those lists with a prized desktop app isn???t enough for you, you can take RTM with you into Google Calendar. Before you were able to locate businesses with the help of Google Maps directly through RTM to map your daily errand run, but now you can do everything in your Google Calendar. I don???t believe RTM has been purchased by Google as of yet, so you???ll need separate accounts today, but I wouldn???t be surprised if Page and Brin pick some coins out of their bucket of billions to divest RTM of its independent status and make you a happier customer.

By the way, I figured it might be a given that RTM allows you to share and publish lists, but in case you were wondering if they happened to pass over those details, they haven???t. Share away.

At the start of the review I thought I would finish off with a proverbial adage of some sort, but rather than put a lot effort into making the last sentence as grand and cheeky as possible, I???m just going to direct you to Remember The Milk. Unless you haven???t read this far, in which case it doesn???t matter at all what I say, so… just??? have fun listing, eh?