Capture
A photo is faster than a description
Some reminders cannot be written down usefully. The bolt you are matching, the label on the box, the bay number, the page of the form. A picture reminder carries the thing itself, and brings it back when the reminder rings.
Four things a text reminder cannot hold
In each of these you did write the reminder. The reminder arrived. It simply did not contain the part you needed.
The part number
M6 by 40, or was it M8. You wrote buy screws because you were standing in a loft with a torch in your teeth, and now you are in the aisle guessing.
The medicine box
Two boxes, similar names, different doses. A photograph of the actual box is the difference between the right tablet and a phone call to the surgery.
Where you left the car
Level 3, bay something. The photo of the pillar takes one second and removes twenty minutes of walking in a concrete loop.
The page of the form
The bit you have to bring back signed. Describing it takes three sentences and still leaves you unsure which page it was.
How a picture reminder comes together
The pattern is always the same: capture at the moment you can see the thing, retrieve at the moment you can act on it.
Photograph it while you are standing there
In the app, take the photo straight into the reminder rather than into the camera roll, so it is already filed against the task before you have walked away.
Add the rest of the reminder
A title, a time or a place, a category. The picture is the detail; the reminder is still what makes it turn up.
Add more than one if the job needs it
A reminder carries several pictures. The shelf, the fitting and the receipt can all be on the same one, which is usually how the job actually is.
Get them back when it rings
The pictures show on the reminder in the Timelee app when it fires, which is the moment you are in the shop or in front of the cupboard.
The problem is not taking the photo. It is finding it again.
Most people already do half of this. You photograph the label, the meter, the parking bay. Then the photo goes into a camera roll with four hundred other photos from the same fortnight, and retrieving it means scrolling past a birthday and two screenshots at the exact moment you are in a queue.
Attaching the picture to a reminder inverts that. You do not go looking for the photo; the photo comes to you, because the reminder it is filed against is the thing that rings. Nothing has to be remembered, searched or dated.
On the web you can add JPG, PNG or GIF files to a reminder as well, and large photos are resized before they are uploaded so a 12-megapixel picture of a screw does not cost you anything to keep.
- Several pictures on one reminder
- Filed with the task, not in a chronological camera roll
- JPG, PNG and GIF, resized on upload from the web
- Shown on the reminder in the app at the moment it fires
Set it up on a laptop. It rings on your phone.
The camera is on the phone, and so is the screen you will be holding when the reminder arrives, so capture and display belong to the Android and iOS apps. The web is where you add files from a computer, write the reminder properly, set the time or the place and choose how it reaches you. Build it at a desk if that is easier; the phone is what shows you the picture in the aisle.
Where pictures work
| Feature | Android | iOS | Web |
|---|---|---|---|
| Take a photo straight into a reminder | Yes | Yes | No |
| Add an existing image file | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Several pictures on one reminder | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pictures shown when the reminder fires | Yes | Yes | No |
| Pictures kept with the reminder in history | Yes | Yes | Yes |
You already took the photo. The only thing missing was a way to be handed it at the right moment.
A reminder is a delivery mechanism. There is no reason it should only be able to deliver words.
Photograph the thing instead of describing it
The box, the bay, the bolt, the page. Attach it to the reminder and stop translating objects into sentences.
Keep reading
- Voice remindersWhen it is quicker to say than to photograph.
- Notes and detail pagesThe written long form, attached to the same reminder.
- Medication remindersA photo of the box, so the right tablet is identifiable at 6am.
- Timelee for AndroidCamera capture and on-screen display.
- Timelee for iPhonePicture reminders on iOS.