How do you like to be reminded of the events and tasks you need to remember?
Do you prefer having a personal butler or personal assistant to keep you on track? Is that too expensive? Do you prefer to ask Google or Siri?
Do you prefer hanging a giant white marker board in your living room? Or is it better if the board is in your bedroom?
How about a small journal to carry around? What if you lose it? Or maybe your mind’s sharp enough to keep you on time every time?
Bummer. Only Superman can pull that last bit off. We’re all too busy dealing with a thousand thoughts every day to remember everything that needs doing. That explains why no matter how often you shop with a mental grocery list, there’s always an “AH! I forgot to get that…” moment.
So, yes. We all need reminders. Reminders bring some order to the chaos that is life. My favorite thing about reminders is their usefulness in building good habits. Reminders that tell you to complete your morning or evening routine, read a book, or complete a task, do just that.
However, reminders don’t mean much if they’re not done right. Choose a visual reminder system that acts as a trigger, is hard to evade, can hold enough data, and always keeps you on track.
In this post, we’ll compare two reminder systems — Reminder Bracelets and Focus Bear. We’ll look at both methods' features and benefits, similarities and differences, to help you understand which enables you to get your reminding done better.
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Reminder Bracelets: What are they
A reminder bracelet is exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a bracelet designed to remind you of something.
There are different types of reminder bracelets. Some embody the reminder itself. An NGO spreading awareness about a social vice might make a bracelet carrying that message. Everyone who wears it is reminded of the message.
Other reminder bracelets have a tag attached to them where you can write stuff you need to remember. It’s like wearing a to-do list on your wrist.
What is Focus Bear
Focus Bear is a mobile app for building new habits, tracking habits, blocking out distractions, setting reminders, and staying productive.
The app is based on neuroscience principles that’ll help you get stuff done.
The Best Reminder?
Phew. This battle should be intense.
To decide what reminder is the most suitable, we’ve got to come up with a list of features of a good reminder. Then we’ll see how well each system stacks up against those features.
What are the features of a good reminder system?
After several brainstorming sessions and hours of which-sitcom-is-the-best-one-ever debates, we’ve come up with our list of features:
- Visible — if it’s going to remind, you have to see it.
- Triggering — good reminders shouldn’t just display information; they should be able to inspire action.
- In your face-ness — what good is a reminder if it doesn’t stick around till the job is complete?
- Keeping you on track — is it helping you become more productive?
Using these features, let’s see how good these two reminder systems are at reminding.
Visibility
This is the most straightforward feature. Every reminder system has this.
Reminders on a reminder bracelet are visible. The reminder can be seen as long as you keep the bracelet on. You can read the information on the tag anytime it pops into your line of sight.
Focus Bear reminders appear in notification formats. When it’s time for you to be reminded, a notification doing just that pops up.
Both systems do an excellent job of staying visible.
Triggers
Good reminders are both visible and attention-grabbing/triggering. Your shoes are always visible, but they don’t typically grab your attention or inspire you to take action.
Reminder bracelets exist so that when you look at your wrist, you’re triggered to complete an action or remember something you’ve forgotten. However, it’s very easy to get so used to the bracelet that it stops being both visible and triggering — only visible.
You can see it, but it’s not getting your attention.
It’s pretty hard to ignore a Focus Bear reminder. Once the notification appears on your device, it triggers an action. You either delay for some time, or you get your task done immediately.
Focus Bear comes out on top here.
In your face-ness
If reminders are going to help you transition from bad habits to good ones, they will need to be in your face, impossible to ignore.
This is perhaps the biggest shortcoming of regular phone reminders. They don’t hold you accountable and the “Do it later” is always just one button away.
Reminder bracelets do an excellent job of staying in your face. The rule with the tags on a reminder bracelet is that you can’t take it off till your tasks are complete. They do a good job, but not a great one.
Focus Bear is much better in this regard. When the time is due for a task, a message from Focus Bear pops up and stays open until that task is complete.
You'll keep seeing the reminder even when you try to switch between apps. It is possible to deactivate the message, but ignoring your commitment would take more than just a button.
Keeping you on track
This feature gauges the overall effectiveness of your reminder system on productivity.
With reminder bracelets, I got visibility, some ability to provoke action, and just enough to be in my face. From my experience, productivity improves noticeably when I use a reminder bracelet. Five out of ten days, I completed the tasks on my reminder bracelet.
With Focus Bear, I got visibility, enough triggers, and plenty in my face-ness. I couldn’t enjoy any time on social media until I completed a task.
No reminder went unnoticed. It simply won’t go without some deliberate action from my end. Rather than go through the deactivation process, I spent that time completing all my tasks, and I was productive eight days out of ten days.
Wrap Up
Reminder bracelets and Focus Bear are both great reminder systems. That’s my conclusion.
One is more suitable if you’re an active device (phone or laptop) user. A reminder bracelet seems more appropriate if you rarely use a mobile device.
So, which are you?
Hi I'm Jeremy, and I understand the challenges of living with ASD and ADHD.
