Do You Have a Monkey On Your Back?

If you have ever wished that there was an instant and automatic way of reminding someone else to complete a task, this may be just what you have been waiting for. Well here it is, the ultimate nagging service. Monkey On Your Back is a reminder service with a twist. It allows you to set up reminders that are automatically emailed to a specific recipient at regular intervals until the date of your choice.

It sounds like a great concept for anyone who wants to keep bugging others to finish a task, but either don't have the time to check up on them personally or don't want to come across as nagging. Just set up a "monkey" to do that task for you and you can relax and do whatever it is that your time is better spent doing. It can work for co-workers, family, friends or anyone else. Whether they will actually complete the task on time (if at all) is still up to the other person.

All you have to do is register for the service, and you are ready to start sending out email monkeys to do the pestering for you. When the person on the other end receives the monkey in their email inbox, they are given the opportunity to sign up for the service. It is not required of the recipient, but it does give them the ability to manage their reminders and even send monkeys out to others.

Monkey On Your Back is free but limits you to only 5 active reminders (monkeys) at any given time. If you need more monkeys, you can always shell out $20 per month which will then give you unlimited simultaneous monkey reminders. I found the user interface to be simple and clean, and it allows you to view all of your received and sent monkey reminders in an uncluttered environment.

The service sends out 4 additional reminders after the original; one, two, three, and seven days before the deadline (set by you). It organizes and separates those monkeys that are still active and those that have recently expired. One downside, however, is that you are not able to see if the recipient has actually received and viewed their reminder, but it will let the other person know if they have missed their monkey's deadline.

You can schedule a monkey to be sent in the future, as far in advance as you wish, and you also have the option of choosing what time of day the monkey is delivered. The choices are to send reminders early on in the day (morning), around the middle of the day (afternoon), or at the end (evening).

The concept of this service seems very useful and keeps you from having to individually remind people to do things that need to be done. Most of us have enough to do ourselves, that it is hard to remember what you need to remind others to do, making this a great choice to clear your head some. Just don't get out of hand sending out monkeys because I am sure that if someone see a bunch of them, they will not appreciate it. Also, with spam being a big deal in email inboxes, some mail programs may not send these to the inbox, but rather straight to a user's spam box, never to be seen. I recommend at least informing others that you will be sending them reminders by email.

With that said, if you have chores or tasks for others, try putting a monkey on their back and see how effective it is. It is worth a try!