How to Add Tasks to Toodledo Using Siri

To-do lists are good, and to-do lists which are easy to use are great. What is easy to do gets done; that's human nature. "Easy" takes a variety of forms for various people. When a new "to-do" arrives, some people:

• Just try to remember it. They don't need any book or device, and don't have to carry any sort of system with them. The challenge, however, is that memory is fallible, and lots is forgotten and drops through the cracks.
• Write on whatever scrap of paper is available. Again, they don't need to carry a system with them. The challenge, however,  is keeping up with all of those random pieces of paper.
• Write on their hand. Nothing is "handier," if you are in mood for a bad pun. The challenge, however, is that if good hand-washing practices are in place, those to-dos disappear.
• Call their own voice mail. Nothing falls through the cracks. If one has a many to-dos, however, a great deal of time is spent transcribing voice mails and adding them to the to-do list.

What if you or I could talk to our phone, and what we say wind up on our to-do list? That's what this post and the next demonstrate for you.

My journey with voice input started with Jott, and when Jott began to charge for its services, switched to reQall. Both of those services allowed me to dial one phone number, which I had programmed into a speed dial key, and talk. Within a few minutes, I would receive an email with everything I had said in my message transcribed into text. The to-do was out of my head and into my email. When I handled email later in the day, I would handle that to-do as well.

Voice input has become more sophisticated, and Siri is probably the best known tool for it. Those who use Siri probably know of the "remind me" command. "Remind me to pickup dog food on Friday" triggers an entry into an app called "Reminders." Reminders is the built-in to-do app on the iPhone.

But what if you use Toodledo as your to-do list? Is there a way to add a reminder with Siri and that reminder wind up in Toodledo? The answer is "Yes."

You would of course, need to have the Toodledo app installed on your iPhone. From Toodledo's help page, the instructions for getting Reminders to show up in Toodledo are as follows:

1. First, tap "Settings" inside the app and select "Reminders Syncing". Then, turn on importing from the Reminder's app. 
2. Now, everything that is added to Reminders will be automatically added to Toodledo as well. To use Siri, simply activate Siri and say "Remind me to ...." and it will be added to Reminders and Toodledo. 
3. If the tasks are not importing, go into Apple's Settings app and tap "Privacy" and then "Reminders". Make sure that the switch is turned on for Toodledo.

This process gets the to-do into the Toodledo app on the iPhone. When the iPhone syncs with the server, the to-do shows up in Toodledo on the desktop computer, laptop, or any other device using Toodledo.

In the next post, we will show how Android users can use Google Now to get to-dos into Toodledo.

Are you new to Toodledo and wondering what it is all about? I composed a 6-post series that will help. It begins with this post.

If you are already using this technique, let me know how it is working for you.

Syncing Multiple Google Calendars to iPhone

I have been a proponent digital calendars since I made my own transition from paper to digital in 2001. I currently use Google Calendar. Actually, there are three calendars: mine, my wife's, and an "FYI" calendar. Having all three, or any combination of them, display on the computer screen is a plus. Having the same capability on my mobile devices is highly desirable.

I am not an iPhone user, but one of the questions I often hear is how to sync multiple Google Calendars with the iPhone. The scenario I hear is when one opens the Gmail app on the iPhone and logs in, the main calendar appears. The other calendars do not.

A Google search for "syncing multiple Google calendars to iPhone" yields many results, particularly links to bulletin boards where people are asking for help, receiving proposed solutions, and reporting back as to what did and did not work. I have also seen explanations which seemed too complex and knew there had to be an easier way.

One person answered the question with a single link:

https://www.google.com/calendar/iphoneselect

The link took me to a screen which listed my calendars with check marks beside each one. I assume you put a check beside each calendar you wish to appear on your iPhone and save. That's a simple solution, and if it indeed works, is almost too good to be true.

For those who use an iPhone, what has been your experience? What did you have to do to get multiple Google calendars to appear on your iPhone?

Point and Shoot Foreign Language Translation...There's an App for That??

Point your iPhone or iPad at a sign written in Spanish and see it translated into English before your eyes? Yep, that's what Word Lens is all about.



I have not seen the app in action, so I have no idea whether or not it's as good as the video. Wow, just think of the possibilities!

ToodleDo: An Option for Maintaining an iPhone Task List

While iPhone users can sync their can sync their calendars with Outlook or Google Calendar. Maintaining a task list on the iPhone presents a challenge in that there is no native task application on the device. ToodleDo offers a third-party alternative. From the reviews I have read, the program works well.

Here is a short video demonstrating this software:



The program is available in three versions: Free, Pro, and Pro Plus.

We all need a comprehensive system for staying on top of all of the commitments we have made to ourselves and others. For the iPhone user, this program may be a very good answer.