Emptying your head, Alexa style!
At the end of last year I blogged about buying my wife an Amazon Echo for Christmas. Well, since we set it up at home I wouldn’t say it changed our lives dramatically. We’ve largely been asking Alexa to play songs, check the weather, and for me to check on the football scores.
Game changer
Then this weekend I spotted that I could simply link my To-do app (I use Todoist) to Alexa. Suddenly we had a game changer. I personally use David Allen’s Getting Thing Done (GTD) process, where one of his mantra’s is “Your head is for having ideas, not holding them”. Hence I use my To-do app as my trusted system to capture any to-do’s, thoughts, and ideas, to get them out of my head.
With the Amazon Echo dot conveniently placed by our living room/kitchen door, I can capture To-dos when in either of these rooms, places where I spend a lot of time when in the house. I just say “Alexa, put xxxxx on my to-do list, and viola, its put instantly into my Todoist app’s inbox. If I want to put a due date or timed reminder on it, I can ask for that too.
Never forget anything
It has also automatically created an Alexa Shopping List in Todoist for me. I used this feature within 5 minutes of it being set up. I was loading the dishwasher and it indicated it was out of rinse aid. “Alexa, add rinse aid to shopping list’. Done! No more scraps of paper and post it notes hanging around the kitchen for me in future.
This hands-free way of capturing things I’m finding much more convenient and faster than manually typing things into my phone too. The phone of course may not even be in the room with me too.
Using the tech to your advantage
This all then got me thinking about my apple watch, which over the last two years has largely been used as a nice watch to check the time. I the found that Todosit was on the watch too. So when I’m out and about I can instantly dictate and ideas and reminders, which then go straight into my app list. There’s a bit of lag on the watch as it’s the original Series 1 version, but it still feels quicker than pulling out my phone and manually typing it in.
It’s still early days, but I’m pretty sure I’ll now be using both of these gadgets regularly to capture my To-dos. I’ll report back if and when I fail to pick up the milk from the shops….:)
What tech in your home do you find you use to your advantage? Let me know in the Comments