Mobile Tip: Texting Myself Has Helped Me With Organization and Remember Quick Thoughts

Do you talk to yourself sometimes? I do. I talk to myself sometimes. Perhaps, I should talk to myself more often. The best way to do this in the mobile world is through texting yourself. That’s what I do on my iPhone with Messages. It could probably be done with any other app you choose to use. And it has been a great help in helping me keep track of some things while allow me to quickly post thoughts that I don’t want to forget the moment I walk into the house or out the the shower.

In essence, my messaging app has become my default personal and private (as much as I can keep it that way) feed for my daily life. 

I have included locations that I’ve been to that I want to revisit, where I parked my car, and where I want to visit for the first time.

I have also posted links to things that I want to check out later that day.

Other things that I have messaged myself includes quotes, ideas, things I want to consider more in-depth or research, and reminders. I get that there are already apps for that but is there anything out there that really pulls all these together. Your default messaging app is likely your most used app on your phone. It’s a no brainer that you would go to that app automatically because you’ve already got the muscle memory to do that.

In fact, this is not a new idea. There are a few other apps that I have used, Signal, Keybase, and GroupMe that allows self-messaging. Beyond that, they all work the same. So I imagine most other apps would allow self-messaging.  On the iPhone, Messages is my default messaging app on the iPhone so it’s what I use.

I’ll give you an example of how well this works for me. I was walking out of a supermarket with my wife when pointed to a sign about how shopping cart wheels lock up when take out of the parking lot. And I have tried it on the past and the wheels did lock up. In a hurry to get to our next stop, I did not have time to look it up right then and there. So I messaged myself to look up how this works when I get home.

Could I have done that using reminder? Yes. Will I look into it? There is a good chance I will do that but also a good chance that I’ll get distracted and this got pushed back. But since it was on messages, I saw it right away when I got home and looked it up later that evening.