Are You Living a “Remind Me Later” Life?
By: Wendy Miller
Tags: Stress Management, Stress Relief, Lifestyle, Time Management, Productivity

I was working with someone recently who stopped mid-sentence to check a reminder on her phone. As she clicked to have it remind her later, she mentioned that this was the fifth time it had reminded her to do this particular thing. What was this thing? Buying food for her cat.

After I confirmed that the cat still had food, I learned she had set this reminder a month before the cat would actually need food. She did this because “I know myself. I’m going to tell it to remind me all month until three days before she actually runs out of food and then I’ll go get it.”

I get it. I’ve been guilty of it myself. But I’ve noticed it tends to be a pervasive habit among many of my clients. They have so much going on they need to set reminders to ensure it all gets done. But when the reminders pop up, they have so much going on, they click “remind me later” and put it off.

In some cases, it’s not even about being busy. It’s about not wanting to deal with whatever it is in that moment, so they put it off.

But what happens when you spend your life clicking “remind me later?”

You’re always behind

The first woman I mentioned, who had a reminder set to buy cat food a month before it was needed, sets all her reminders that way. She sets everything weeks before it’s actually due.

“But then I keep telling it to remind me later until I’m down to the wire and have only days, hours, or sometimes even minutes to get it done,” she said. “And it’s not that big a deal because I work great under pressure. But sometimes it does make me feel like I’m always running behind.”

It makes sense that she would feel like she’s always behind. Technically, if she set a reminder to buy cat food today but doesn’t buy it until a month from now, she is behind. The fact that the cat food isn’t needed until a month from now doesn’t matter. By setting that reminder for today, she put it into her head that she needed cat food today. So whether she waits until tomorrow, next week, or a month from now, she’s going to feel behind because she’s doing it after she said she wanted to do it.

Photo by ALEXANDRE DINAUT on Unsplash

You’ll miss important things

Another single mom I know mentioned her habit of clicking “remind me later.” She told me it had started because what she was working on in the moment was much more important than the reminder that popped up. But over time, she consistently began to feel that what she was doing in the moment was more important that what she was being reminded of.

It became such a habit to click “remind me later” that she stopped truly reading what reminders were popping up. She’d glance quickly and tell it to remind her later. And then came the day that the reminder was for her daughter’s dance recital.

She told it to remind her later, her boss asked her to work late and she agreed, and the next thing she knew, a reminder popped up one minute before the recital started. She was mid-meeting with her boss and a client and her daughter was peeking out through the closed stage curtains looking for her mother.

That was actually what prompted her to seek out the help of a coach. She felt awful that she’d missed her daughter’s recital and was determined to find a way to make sure it didn’t happen again.

You’ll lose important things

How often do you tell your computer to remind you later when it wants to back things up? Or you snooze an email so it can remind you later to respond to an opportunity? If I had to guess, you’ve done it at least once — I know I have.

I know a woman who made it a habit to click to be reminded later about backing up her laptop. It was getting older and fuller and she freely admits to knowing she needed to back it up. But she kept putting it off and on the day it finally bit the dust, she hadn’t backed it up in at least two years.

She lost several years worth of photos, including those of her three-month-old baby. She lost all the data on a project she’d spent six months working on and the project itself. She lost contact information for most of her clients, colleagues, and vendors.

While she was able to take the laptop to a pro and recover some of what she lost, it served as a wake-up call to her that she needed to stop putting off backing up her device.

You’ll have too many things due at once

Most of the time, we’re able to prioritize and schedule things so that we have time to do all we need to do and without a ton of unnecessary pressure. But when you’re constantly clicking to be reminded later, you’re also giving yourself that much less time before a deadline. And when you have multiple deadlines, spending more time on one deadline means less time for the others.

This means eventually, you’re going to find yourself with a bunch of things that need to be done in close succession and very little time to do them in — perhaps not even enough time to do them all. Which means now you’re scrambling to get it all done, pushing back deadlines, and asking people to cut you some slack as you try to play catch-up.

Photo by Luke Peters on Unsplash

It’s time to take charge of your life

Reminders are a good thing. We all need them. They make sure we don’t miss events, deadlines, and appointments. But sometimes we come to rely on them too much — and then we start to ignore them because we rely on them so much. We use them for everything and they become more of an annoyance than a help.

It’s time to stop living a “remind me later” life. But how do you do that?

You start by assessing what you set reminders for. Personally, I use reminders for two specific purposes:

1. Anything with a set time, such as a party, appointment, project deadline, or something similar.

2. Anything without a set time that happens regularly but infrequently enough that I could forget, such as rotating a mattress, changing my cat’s flea collar, or checking/changing the oil in my car.

Anything else gets put on a to-do list. Why does everything else go on a to-do list? Because if it has no set time it needs to be done by, then it is truly a “I’ll get to it when I get it” item. That means a reminder when I don’t feel like doing it or I’m doing something more urgent is going to annoy me and I’ll tell it to remind me later, starting that ugly cycle.

By putting it on a to-do list instead, I can look at my to-do list on my own schedule and decide for myself what I want to do and when. Unlike a reminder that can feel like I’m being pressured to do something when I don’t want to or don’t have time, a to-do list allows me to feel like I have a choice. When I have just five minutes, I can choose a quick and easy item. When I have more time, I can choose a more time-consuming or difficult item.

A to-do list also makes it easier to prioritize. When everything is set as a reminder, everything seems just as important and urgent as everything else. But on a to-do list, you can see everything. This allows you to determine what’s most important and what’s least important. Rather than feeling overwhelmed because you don’t know where to start or what really matters, you’ll feel a sense of relief at knowing where you need to start and what you can safely ignore.

And when the reminders pop up, you’ll be ready to pay more attention to them and take them seriously in that moment. Instead of telling them to remind you later, you’ll recognize their significance and do what needs to be done.

Wendy Miller is a Single Mom Coach & meditation teacher. She helps moms use mindfulness and meditation to create the life they really want. She lives in Florida with her two sons, where she homeschools while solo parenting, while surrounded by what feels like a zooful of animals.

You can follow her on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. You can also sign up for her newsletter where she offers more insights, tips, tricks, advice, and information to help single moms find purpose, creativity, passion, and peace.

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