Xatal

As I go through my day, a million things occur to me to do later on — maybe I want to remember to watch a certain TV show, maybe I need to get some schoolwork done, or maybe I have an appointment I need to remember. The biggest problem is that I always forget what I was going to do.

Most of the time, these reminders aren’t that important, but it does really suck when it’s something significant.

Finally, I realized the best way for me to get my life together: sending text messages to myself. I’m on the computer often, and because I check my e-mail often, my reminders don’t go forgotten. When something occurs to me to remind myself of, I quickly open my phone and send a text message of the reminder, such as, “test on Friday”. Then, when I’m home and at the computer, it pops up as an unread e-mail.

In college, this has been incredibly useful for me, since things can pile up quickly that I forget about, but through my cell phone, they can accumulate in neatly-displayed lists in my e-mail inbox.

How feasible this is will depend on your wireless provider — not all providers support sending texts to e-mail addresses. I have Verizon and it works fine.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Add your e-mail address to your cell phone. Go into your Contacts and add a new contact. Don’t bother specifying a mobile/home/work number — just go straight to the e-mail address. Use the text input to type out your e-mail address. If you don’t have an e-mail address option, try entering it into any of the other areas. Don’t bother putting in any other numbers.
2. Send a text message. Send a text message to yourself like you would to anybody else. I put my e-mail on speed dial because I use it so frequently, but you should be able to directly through the contacts.
3. Check your e-mail. After the message has sent, log into your e-mail account and see if the message is there. The “From” might be your phone number or your provider, it shouldn’t matter too much. If your text message is there, congrats! You’ve got this all set up!

I took it a step further and set up a nice little filter for messages from me, giving them a bright red label in GMail. I also usually leave the messages unread until I’m up for taking the time to handle the reminder.

You can also use this message to send pictures/videos from your phone to yourself. Remember how I said to keep a list of dorm items as they occur to you? This is a great way to do it!

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