I’ve been making to-do lists over the years on scraps of paper, on backs of envelopes, on shopping receipts, on those free insurance and real estate notepads you get in the mail all the time, etc. Sticking them on the refrigerator, under my car keys, in my purse, wrapped around my toothbrush - I could never find a good enough place to remind me to take it with me.

In the past few years, I’ve tried just saving a short TXT file to my desktop. I’d name it ToDo.txt or ToDo12june07.txt, but they add up and get cluttered or get saved out of sequence and I fail to collate the undone items from several lists into a new list.

Ugh.

Well, here’s my latest attempt. TaDaList.com is an online to-do list tool that has already helped people create over 4 million lists. It’s free, has a super quick sign-up, and is very simple to use.

Your home page is ultra simple. Click “Create a new List.” Then name the list. Then add items one at a time up to 20 items per list. At any time you can delete your list, edit your list, or change the order of the items by dragging and dropping. You can check each item as completed and it will be marked “Done.”

Although your lists are initially private, you can make your list accessible for public viewing. Review the public lists of others for some amusement - and there are some very interesting lists out there. You can allow selected people to see and edit your private list, and be notified by RSS of changes to your list. You can even email a copy of the list to yourself.

That last item is key for me. Now I have my latest ta-da to-do list in my email box as well as at my account page at TaDaList.com for review at any time.

I’ve seen plenty of people wandering grocery store aisles aimlessly after forgetting their shopping list, but they always seem to have their Blackberry to call home and get a reminder. That same Blackberry could retrieve their list from the ‘net and prevent the scorn of your mate for having forgotten the list in the first place.

But grocery lists aren’t the only lists worthy of saving and retrieving. Save a list of important birthdays, or addresses, or phone numbers. Save your email contacts in case you can’t access your email account. Make itineraries. Remember that you can collaborate on a list, so there are plenty of business and social possibilities. You can even prepare your next blog. Here’s their own list of things to list:

• Calls to return
• Thank you notes to write
• CDs to buy
• Restaurants to check out
• Shopping list
• Books you want to read (with links to Amazon)
• People to invite for the party
• Points to discuss on a conference call
• Web links to visit
• Famous quotes you don’t want to forget
• Meeting agenda
• Places to visit
• Movies to watch
• Things to pack for your trip
• Gifts to buy for people during the holidays
• Programs to develop
• New words and definitions
• Things to sell on eBay
• Things you have borrowed and should return
• Code changes to make
• Household chores to accomplish
• Bills to pay

Yikes - Bills to pay. Gotta go!

O.C. DeeDee

• Today's Version of the Pyramid Letter Scam Back in the pre-Internet days, we all used to get pyramid schemes and chain letters in the mail. Scammers dress up these schemes with the reputable-sounding Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) tag,...
• First One There is a Rotten Egg! What's with all these people wetting themselves over the fact that 79-year old William Shatner is not playing Captain Kirk in the latest "Star Trek" movie?  He's just an actor,...
• Deal of the Day Amazon.com offers up some mighty good deals. The ad below is an Amazon.com tool called the Gold Box that displays various Deals of the Day, including discount close-outs and going,...

• Cash Registers Collectibles -> Banks-Registers-and-Vending Some of us remember going into the local Mom & Pop shop and having our penny candy rang up on a tall brass cash register. Some of...
• Top 10+ Ways to save money AND the environment We all read about ways that an individual can help the environment such as buying carbon offsets, driving less, recycling cans and bottles, etc. But there are many more ways...
• Grocery Shopping for Better Health pt 1 This is part 1 in a 4 part series about knowing how to read labels and excel at grocery shopping for the purpose of losing weight and getting yourself healthy...