How Marc uses OnlineHomeBase
From OnlineHomeBase Help
I've originally created OHB to help myself stay organized. I still use it for that, throughout the day. In all kinds of different ways.
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OHB and my Blackberry
I carry a Blackberry. Let's say I'm thinking of an idea or a time-sensitive task like "buy plane tickets" and want to make sure I don't forget to take care of it the next day. I'll do the following:
- Go into my Blackberry's address book
- Select the email address associated with my OHB notepad sheet (see how to determine that email address (http://www.onlinehomebase.com/help/index.php?title=Using_email_to_add_content_to_a_sheet_or_to_add_or_retrieve_content_from_a_calendar))
- Leave the subject line empty
- Enter "buy plane tickets nnn" into the body of the email
- Send off the email.
Explanations: Leaving the subject line empty causes OHB to pay attention to only the first line of text in your email. This way, text in your email signature, for instance, will be ignored by OHB. The "nnn" is a shorthand for " ;; 9 rh" and I've defined it in OHB's autotext function (http://www.onlinehomebase.com/help/index.php?title=AutoText:_creating_short_key_phrases_for_quicker_entry_of_common_phrases_and_commands), which causes OHB to automatically replace certain short phrases (like "nnn") with longer phrases that you can define.
Basically, sending off this email creates an email reminder that will be sent hourly to the primary email address in my OHB user settings, starting at the designated time (9 AM in the morning, in this case). The reminder will contain the text "buy plane tickets".
So starting the following day at 9 in the morning, every hour, I will receive that email. The email's subject line repeats the first 40 or so characters of its content, which will often be enough to tell me about its contents. Inside the email, there are a bunch of links providing various snooze options (see screenshot below). That way, all it takes is a single click to re-schedule the email to the following day, or the following Wednesday, or 100 days later. It's quite convenient and I use this often.
Another ways of snoozing a reminder email is to simply reply to it in my Blackberry and write something like ";;tue 9 rh" in the body of the email, followed by a line return. This will reschedule the email accordingly (in this example, to the next Tuesday morning, at 9 AM, with hourly repeats). If I just write "del" (without the quotation marks), the reminder will be deleted.
Let's say I've got a whole bunch of OHB reminder emails scheduled, and on Monday morning 3 dozen or so pour into my email in-box (not unusual). Rather than snoozing or deleting each email using the built-in snooze links or the "snooze via email reply" functionality, I'll log into my OHB account to use the bulk snooze feature. To go to OHB, I don't type the lengthy "onlinehomebase.com" into the browser's address field, but instead type ALT-d (places the cursor into the browser's address field), then type "1q11" (the shorthand domain for OHB) and then click CTRL-ENTER (which adds "www" and ".com"). Once I'm logged into my account, I click CTRL-SHIFT-E which produces a list of all pending reminders for the current day ("bulk snooze"). Each reminder has a dropdown menu next to it with the usual snooze options ("tomorrow", "in a week", "in a 100 days", etc). I'll snooze or, if warranted, delete reminders via the dropdown menus, then click any of the UPDATE buttons. This will bulk-snooze all reminders according to the selections in the dropdown menus. It's very efficient. Below is a sample of the reminder list function that is produced by pressing CTRL-SHIFT-E in OHB.
I should say that I reschedule these very nagging, repeating email reminders only for time sensitive matters. If it's a non-time-sensitive, normal "to do" item, then I will copy the item into a normal todo list that I keep in an old-fashioned word document. By the way, clicking inside the text of a reminder on the CTRL-SHIFT reminder list page (see screenshot above) will copy it to the clipboard immediately, so it's ready for pasting.
To give you a sense of the mix of my reminder systems: in addition to the repeat email reminders and my word document To-Do list, I always have a number of yellow pad notes sticking on my office PC's monitor with To Do items that absolutely, definitely, or-the-world-comes-to-an-end have to be done on the same day. Talk about a convoluted system of reminders. But it works for me.
By the way, I've realized only lately why this system works so well for me. It works so well because the reminders, by virtue of using email to reach you, get very effectively on your nerves. While you can snooze them for a while, they'll, reliably, creep back onto your radar and bug you until you act on them.
OHB and my Microsoft Windows
When it comes to creating a reminder to catch a thought, I believe that quickness makes all the difference. What I mean is that having a readily available, easy and quick-to-use mechanism that ensures that the item will be shoved back onto our internal radar later on will make the difference between creating a reminder, and not creating it, and thus, between remembering the item and forgetting it.
Talking of quickness, OHB offers another very quick way of adding items to an OnlineHomeBase sheet. Even quicker than shooting off an email from my Blackberry. It's works through an OHB "qMind" icon in my Windows XP Quicklaunch toolbar. I use this approach when I'm at my PC.
When I click the qMind icon, an input field pops up. I'll enter the reminder, click OK, then click Yes on a second prompt Windows XP will display for security reasons ("The web page you are viewing is trying to close this window...") and that's it. The reminder is added. This will take less than a second.
This is very quick. For me, it's an effective solution for making sure that I'll revisit a thought. Just click the icon, jot it down, then forget about it, knowing OHB will shove it back onto my radar. There's something to be said for having a mechanism for taking things out of your mind and knowing they'll be put back there in due time.
Click [here (http://www.onlinehomebase.com/help/index.php?title=Using_a_qMind_button_to_quickly_add_reminders_or_items_to_a_sheet)] to find out how to add qMind buttons to your Favorites or Windows XP QuickLaunch area.
OHB and my things
I also use the the qMind function described above to track where I put physical things. In my office I have a system of 24 drawers, labeled with letter from A-Z (the first two drawers are labeled both, A and Y, and B and Z, in order to accomodate all 26 letters). I've created an OHB sheet where I track what I place in the drawers.
I've placed a qMind (http://www.onlinehomebase.com/help/index.php?title=Using_a_qMind_button_to_quickly_add_reminders_or_items_to_a_sheet) icon for that sheet in my QuickLaunch area.
Plus, I've created an email address (http://www.onlinehomebase.com/help/index.php?title=Using_email_to_add_content_to_a_sheet_or_to_add_or_retrieve_content_from_a_calendar) in my Blackberry Outlook address book that adds content to that sheet. Now, let's say I put a tape recorder into drawer "G". I'll click the qMind icon for the drawer sheet and enter "G: tape recorder" -- which will add this entry to the drawer sheet in my OHB account.
It's basically a quick and easy way of building a searchable inventory of all the stuff in those 24 drawers. For me, it's a great way of storing stuff and being able to retrieve it. I can even search (http://www.onlinehomebase.com/help/index.php?title=Searching_via_email) the drawer sheet via email from my Blackberry, when I'm not at the office, so that I can tell a colleague where to find something if needed.
Remembering Birthdays
Putting effort into remembering people's birthdays is a great way of nurturing relationships. While I use my Blackberry and Outlook as my daily calendar, I still use OnlineHomebase's calendar to track birthdays. Below is a screenshot of my OHB calendar/ showing various scheduled birthdays ("geb" is an abbreviation for the German word "Geburtstag" which means birthday).
The birthday reminders use "ry" which means "repeat yearly". Most of them are scheduled to be sent at 6AM or 9AM.
Using OHB's [CalMail feature (http://www.onlinehomebase.com/help/index.php?title=Receiving_an_email_in_the_morning_notifying_you_of_all_calendar_items_for_that_day)], I also get an email very early in the morning, that contains all the calendar entries for that day. In addition, I receive an email every Sunday afternoon, listing all calendar items OHB will sent to me in the next 7 days -- giving me enough advance notice for more elaborate "birthday measures".
All these are one-time reminders, for that day. While they get repeated yearly, they don't get repeated hourly. So when I receive notification of a birthday, I will often use my Blackberry to quickly send an email to schedule a nagging reminder that will be repeated hourly throughout the day (see above how to do that), to make sure I will remember acting on the birthday and make that call, or send that "Happy Birthday" email.
Keeping my Journal
I also use OHB to keep a journal. For me, the key to regularly adding an entry to my journal is to make it easy. Here's a little article I wrote about this a while ago. What I describe still works for me.
Struggling to Keep a Daily Journal? Email may help!
By Marc Fest
When the New Year arrived, I made my usual New Year's resolution of keeping a private, daily journal.
In the past, this resolution has always been short-lived. But this time it seems different. Eight days into 2004, my journal has grown by an entry, or even several, every single day. And unlike in previous years, it feels easy. [Note: well into 2005, this is still working for me, and the journal has grown to hundreds of pages per year]
What’s going on?
This year, for the first time, I use email to keep my diary. Like most people, I use email more than any other application. That's why it's easy to squeeze in a quick email about what happened yesterday, or about what’s been on my mind.
So whom do I send the email to?
I email my daily entries to my journal page at www.onlinehomebase.com. OnlineHomeBase (OHB) is a Web service I created to make organizing the information in my life easier and more fun.
Here’s how OHB lets you keep a journal via email:
- Create a free trial account at www.onlinehomebase.com (if all you want is a journal, you'll never have to switch to a paid subscription)
- Click the NEW button and enter the name for your journal page; let's call it "journal" (it's as easy as creating a new document in Word).
That's it.
Now, all you need to do is send your journal emails to joedoe.journal@onlinehomebase.com (replace "joedoe" with your OHB username). OHB will append each entry to the top of your journal page.
Keeping a journal this way is easy. You can do it from your office; from your Blackberry; from your cell phone (if it can send email); or from a friend's place or from an Internet cafe.
Since you're already spending so much of your time doing email, taking a minute or two for your daily journal entry doesn't much interrupt your work flow (I do it in the morning, after stretching, or during the day, when a thought crosses my mind and I can take a moment).
Now, if you do want to share your journal page on OHB with the world, that's easy to do, too.
When you log into your OHB account and display your journal page, you'll see a link in the top left that says "more functions". Click it, then click where it says "publish". This gets you to where OHB let's you create an easy-to-remember address like "www.onlinehb.com/marc/journal". This address will link directly to your journal page. It makes it viewable to anybody who goes to that address. In addition to the domain "onlinehb.com", OHB offers three other catchy domains for building that Web address ("iolinks.com", "browse-to.com" and "bring-up.com").
Want to notify your devoted readers every time you've made a journal entry? Use the "Notify" link under "more functions" to enter their email addresses once, and then use the Notify button that will be added above your journal page.
If you have checked the little check box next to "Enable color and graphics" when you first clicked the NEW button to create your journal page, then you can even drag and drop or upload photos into your journal pages.
You can even get rid of the OHB logo on top and the navigational links on the bottom of the page if you want it to be all about you: check the respective option under "more functions" / "page properties".
To reach my goal of keeping a journal, I prefer to keep things simple. I don't make my journal page public, and I don't bother about photos or images for now. I'm thrilled enough that I've kept up with my journal entries this year so far. And that using email seems to make it easier. Chip Scanlan, who produces a writing advice column for the Poynter Journalism Institute's Web site, seems to have made the same discovery. In his current column he says:
I subscribe to Online HomeBase, a web-based "information manager" with a cool new feature from creator Marc Fest which allows me to e-mail random entries to a single "journal file."
So if you want to start keeping a daily journal, give it a shot. It's not too late for a New Year's resolution. And doing it via email may just make it possible.
Lastly
Imagine our brains worked perfectly. We'd remember everything, never miss an appointment. No need for to-do lists, personal organizers, or other mental crutches of the sort described above.
It'd be sooooo boring. To me it's fun to find ways of working around the imperfections of our brains. It's like a game.
Needless to say, I still flake out and forget things...
:-)
PS: If you have interesting ways of using OHB that you'd like to share, submit them [here (http://www.onlinehomebase.com/contact.html)] and I might add them to this page.
