How to Remember the Milk at the Grocers

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how I use Google Calendars to plan more interesting weekly menus. As part of the planning, I mentioned how I used Remember The Milk for groceries. One way I use it with Google Calendars is to look at the ingredients that the recipe in mind calls for, check it against my pantry and then put it into RTM. Other times, while I'm fixing something up in the kitchen, I'll get to the last drop of milk and need to remember to get it the next time I'm at the grocers. So in it goes as well. And after about a year into our new neighborhood, we've realized that we can stretch our dollar by shopping at different places; different grocers offer different products and at different prices, so instead of buying everything at one place, we maximize our savings by heading to these shops around our area whenever we are in the vicinity to stock up. We just have to keep check of where to buy what. I use Remember The Milk to manage all of that and more and it is singularly one of the most useful applications I have - in my Mac, at my work PC, and on my Android phone. You can of course do the same on your iPhone, Blackberry and Windows Mobile as well.

Capture it!
Wherever it comes from, it goes in here. It will probably be one of the biggest changes you will have to make if you haven't already adopted the system. This is part of the GTD system and functions just like the ideas in a Capture bucket. Whether its at home browsing the weekly menu, in the kitchen as I run out of milk or an idea that comes to me while we're having dinner somewhere, I get to my nearest RTM application and drop it in.

I've put RTM applications in all the convenient locations I might want to access it. On my phone, I have an email link that sits on my main page, the mobile web app bookmarked on my phone browser, or tweet to it. On my Mac, I drop it into the iGoogle App, into the Search box on the browser, punch it away into Quicksilver, into the Fluid-driven web-page app, tweet it on Tweetie or Twitterific or simply the website itself. There are buckets for me everywhere, anytime I need to remember something and it all goes into one place that it syncable across.

Tag it!
RTM comes with a lot of details and features. You can set dates due down to the minute, set it to repeat, tag it, locate it, put in a url reference, notate tasks, share it, email it, create lists and Smart Lists, and even location-based tasks. Lots of Easter eggs to look for in the application. For my purposes, I have only one main list called the Inbox. The inbox functions just like an email inbox - any task that comes in goes there, except that instead of emails, I'll receive tasks. Every item I need goes into the inbox and tagged with the type of list it should go into and which grocer I can get it at e.g. .

Locate it!
RTM comes with location-based functionality, but I prefer to 'locate' my tasks manually since there are a few franchises of the grocer I go to along my weekly route. For this, I use the Smart List. Smart Lists are special lists that are created based on criteria that can be define, and are automatically updated as your tasks are added or changed. You could create Smart Lists for tasks due tomorrow, items that you need to buy in a week or, for my groceries bought at Coles, I have created a Smart List to search: tag: 'groceries AND Coles' which will show me all the groceries I need to buy the next time I'm at Coles. I have also set up another Smart List for the other local farmers' market I go to, to search: 'groceries AND market' to show me all the items (mostly vegetables and seafood) I can pick up next time I'm passing the farmers' market.

Buy it!
This is the last step in my RTM Grocery List process. When I get to the store, I use the RTM app on my Android-based phone and pull out the 'Groceries AND Coles' Smart List and I knock off the items as they make it into my basket. You could do the same with the iPhone, Blackberry and Windows Mobile versions as well. Here's an extra tip: if you have your family eating habits down to a routine and know for example that the family goes through 3kg bag of rice in a month, you could set your grocery item to repeat itself automatically every month so that you don't have to input it into RTM. This handy tip I've found, helps to prevent the 'Oh no! We don't have any more milk for cereals!' instances that I mentioned briefly at the start. I buy and, if I haven't quite used up all the rice I need, it goes into the pantry - but I won't have to worry about buying rice for when I run out in a next couple of days. Saves me a few of trips out and cash for gas too!

Share it!
Because Sharing is Caring. And because more hands make light work. And because sometimes (in fact MOST of the times) it is my husband who passes by the grocers on the way home. One way I do this is to 'share' the grocery items on my list with my husband as an Atom feed into his RSS aggregator that he reads at the end of the work day so he'll know what to pick up on the way home. RTM doesn't have the capabilities for sharing Smart Lists at the moment and looking at the RTM forums, there are many wanting that feature. So, RTM, if you're reading this, Get On It Already! Thankfully, there are other ways you can do this if you create a dedicated list for 'Groceries' that is not a Smart List, you can share it with your contact who'll get it on his RTM application. Maybe I should try to make a wish list like that public and publish it - and maybe a devoted reader will buy my groceries perhaps?