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Backpackit for highly effective people
June 07, 2005
I'm big on writing stuff down that I know I'll forget, but dayplanners never worked for me. So I've been inventing and using simpler more accessible alternatives.
I've been through them all: Sticky notes, excel spreadsheets and just emailing myself TODO items with my blackberry. That works nicely because I always have my BB with me, and a mail filter recognizes emails with TODOs and moves them to a separate mail folder.
Trouble is I can’t access oddpost (my web based email) from my client site because it’s blocked. I tried creating a TODO mail folder on my blackberry instead of oddpost but had some shortcomings there as well (don’t remember what they were).
So my requirements were:
- Able to create new TODO items from anywhere
- Able to access TODO list from anywhere
Enter backpackit from the makers of basecamp. 1. Backpackit lets you email TODOs, Notes, files, etc to yourself via a unique email address that looks something like xxxYYxxx@myaccount.backpackit.com (myaccount being whatever name you pick during signup). 2. All the emailed items show up (the turnaround is pretty fast!) on your http://myaccount.backpackit.com account. And the backpackit site is not blocked from my client and probably won't be.
Ofcourse, I'd never use backpackit if it wasn't for the email interface (the web interface is more powerful). That gives me the "from anywhere" functionality thanks to the blackberry. Oh yeah and it's free for basic usage. If backpackit had a printer-friendly calendar which you could email reminders to, I'd go ahead and dump calendar.yahoo.com as well.
June 7, 2005 at 10:25 AM in General | Permalink
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Comments
What is it about the Blackberry's built in task list /todos you don't like? Speed in accessing, or do you just need it punched up to a web interface incase you're without Blackberry?
Posted by: Brian J. Burke | Jun 7, 2005 2:45:01 PM
I didn't want to tie myself to the Blackberry. I really need the "from anywhere" (create AND read) functionality. For example, at work, I'd just alt-tab to Outlook, ctrl-N, click clack, alt-s, and I'm done. It's just much faster than creating a task on Blackberry's task list. Plus, I can copy-paste a note from another app (browser?) to go with the todo, to help me recall context later on.
When I'm away from the computer, that's when I fall back on the blackberry to create items. Using email for creating, and browser for reading (or have backpackit email out the tasklist to my inbox) frees me up.
Posted by: Vik | Jun 7, 2005 3:04:12 PM
