First reviews!

Posted on 14 March 2009 by Minal

Quick post to say I’m so excited to read these first reviews of my book — what a great way to begin the weekend!

San Francisco Chronicle review by ABRAHAM VERGHESE:

Leaving India gives us a means to understand the forces that took so many Indians (my parents included) away from their birth land … Echoes of V.S. Naipaul … Rich, entertaining and illuminating.

Washington Post review by SADIA SHEPARD:

Meticulously researched and evocatively written … searingly honest … Leaving India is a story of migration, but it is also, as Hajratwala reminds us, about “the ones we leave behind.”

I heart New York

Posted on 9 March 2009 by Minal

So busy, so full of art and dirt and food and hunger, so hot (art again, pretty people, trendspotting), so cold (I love my coat and the hat-scarf my mother made for me), and so much fun!

I landed at JFK at 10:30 p.m. last Wednesday; was welcomed with frigid air, a warm car, and a home-cooked aloo-gobi sabzi; danced with the stars and (mostly) their friends at Basement Bhangra; re-learned the subways; and entered a whirlwind of activities as part of the weekend SAWCC Literary Festival, “Stranger Love.”

As I embark on my own book tour, I was interested to see how two experienced South Asian American authors, Jhumpa Lahiri and Suketu Mehta, held forth on their work in almost opposite ways. Jhumpa was reserved and is an obviously very private person, so her stage conversation with author/journalist Sugi Ganeshananthan revealed few surprises. I did like what Jhumpa said about writing: “Books are my religion, but I dare to write them.”

Suketu and I, along with a third journalist/author, S. Mitra Kalita, were on a panel together that was moderated by the lovely Pooja Makhijani. (By the way, I’m including links so you can check out all these authors; Pooja’s site also has great recommendations for teachers and parents, as she is a children’s author among other her talents.) Suketu was funny and personable, told stories about interviewing torturers and assassins, and seemed extremely comfortable talking about his book.

Later, at the closing evening reading, I was part of a lineup of great writers/performers and got to wear my tiara. I enjoyed every minute, even though by that time I was exhausted after several late nights in a row. The audience was sweet, enthusiastic, and large! I had an amazing time at the festival and enjoyed reconnecting with old friends as well as meeting new people. It was such a privilege to land and have an immediate connection to the strong, vibrant, South Asian women’s artistic community here.

Amid all that, I didn’t have a chance to mention to anyone that I posted a few days ago about the inner workings of my book promotion process on this group blog … so if you’re interested in the deep background, you can read all about it now!

I also did an interview with this online publication (click on page 1 and then page 16 to read both parts), aimed at readers in Gujarat, where my family originates. The headline refers to me as an “NRG Author,” and it took me a minute to realize that the abbreviation stands for Non-Resident Gujarati. Very amusing.

This week, I am guest-lecturing at an NYU comparative diasporas seminar, meeting with my agent and editor, socializing, sending millions of emails, fielding inquiries, and generally getting ready for next week’s launch/travel/media extravaganza. I’ve updated my events page with more details, a new San Francisco event in May, and several public radio shows. Both the Leonard Lopate show (NY, 3/23) and Against the Grain (Berkeley, 3/25) are call-in shows… so please call me!

love,
Minal

LEAVING INDIA book tour and launch

Posted on 2 March 2009 by Minal

Here’s a list of my book tour and launch events! Would love to see you there. NY, DC, LA, SF, and more, March and April 2009.

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3/18/09 Official Launch Date!

3/18/09 Radio: “The World” from PRI

When: Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Where: More than 200 public radio stations across the United States. Listen online at www.theworld.org or use the station finder to find the schedule for your local public radio station.

3/19/09 Washington DC: Reading

When: Thursday, March 19, 2009, 7:00pm – 8:30pm
Where: Politics & Prose Bookstore
5015 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, DC
Contact: 202-363-7663, eventspolitics@prose.com

3/21/09 Pawling, NY: Reading

When: Saturday, March 21, 2009, 3:00pm
Where: The Book Cove
22 Charles Colman Blvd., Pawling, NY 12564
Contact: 845-855-9590, info@pawlingbookcove.com

3/23/09 Radio: The Leonard Lopate Show

When: Monday, March 23, 2009; 12:40 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
Where: WNYC radio, FM 93.9 and AM 820, or listen online.

3/23/09 New York: Reading/Reception

When: Monday, March 23, 2009, 6:00pm – 7:30pm
Where: Corner Bookstore
1313 Madison Avenue, New York, NY
Contact/RSVP: 212-831-3554 or cornerbook@aol.com
Introduced by Samuel G. Freedman, author and professor of journalism, Columbia University. Wine and cheese reception and book signing to follow. Co-sponsored by the South Asian Journalists Association.

3/25/09 Radio: Against the Grain with C.S. Soong

When: Wednesday, March 25, 2009, 12:00pm – 1:00pm
Contact: 510-848-4425, http://againstthegrain.org
Author Minal Hajratwala will discuss the phenomenal growth of India’s diaspora with “Against the Grain” host C.S. Soong, in a wide-ranging conversation encompassing colonialism, racism, migration policy, queerness, and more. Please call in with your questions and comments at 1-510-848-4425.

3/26/09 San Francisco: Reading and Launch Party

When: Thursday, March 26, 2009, 7:30pm – 9:00pm
Where: The Booksmith
1644 Haight Street, San Francisco
Contact: 415-863-8688, events@booksmith.com
Introduced by Sandip Roy, host of New America Now on KALW (FM 91.7). Launch party to follow with book signings, drinks, snacks by mom, and tunes by *dj kbug*.

3/30/09 Pleasanton, California: Reading

When: Monday, March 30, 2009, 7:00pm – 8:30pm
Where: Pleasanton Library
400 Old Bernal Avenue, Pleasanton, CA
Contact: 925-931-3400
Books will be available for purchase and signing.

4/2/09 Los Angeles: Reading/Conversation

When: Thursday, April 2, 2009, 7:00pm – 8:30pm
Where: ALOUD series presented by the Library Foundation of Los Angeles
630 West 5th Street, Los Angeles, CA
Contact: 213-228-7472, lstein@lapl.org
In conversation with Swati Pandey, reporter, Los Angeles Times.
Books will be available for purchase and signing.

5/3/09 San Francisco: Reading

When: Sunday, May 3, 2009, 7:30pm – 10:30pm
Where: K’Vetsh at EROS Lounge, 2051 Market at Church, San Francisco, CA
Contact: 415-255-4921
Featured reader at K’Vetsh Queer Open Mic, one of the longest running queer open mics in SF, located at the fabulous, scandalous, and intimate EROS Lounge.
Free. All Genders 18+ welcome.

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‘Slumdog’: Don’t just watch, do something

Posted on 22 February 2009 by Minal

Long after the Oscar parties fade into tomorrow’s hangover, the reality of the suffering portrayed in “Slumdog Millionaire” will persist. If the film moved you and you want to know, “Why isn’t anyone DOING anything about this horrible situation?” … well, maybe someone is. And maybe that someone could be you. Read on for scenes from the movie, the corresponding reality, and what’s being done about it.

movie: Jamal rescues a pre-teen Latika from a brothel where she is forced to dance for older men.

reality: Hundreds of thousands of girls are trafficked into prostitution in India, with Mumbai’s red-light district being one of the largest and most brutal in the world. I give to the Global Fund for Women, an amazing U.S.-based foundation that funds grassroots groups for girls and women around the world, with a special focus on trafficking issues. The groups they fund work to free girls from prostitution; give them options for physical, emotional, and economic recovery; and prevent girls from being sold or kidnapped into the trade in the first place. Learn more about trafficking, donate now or shop your values.

movie: Poor children hustle to make ends meet, work for unscrupulous characters, and don’t go to school.

reality: Elimination of child labor is tough organizing work that has to be done child by child, neighborhood by neighborhood, community by community. Moving children from hustling, begging, and informal labour into schools also requires empowering their caretakers through programs such as micro-loans supporting small-scale entrepreneurialism by women. Hand in Hand is an India-based non-profit that works to end child labor in rural Tamil Nadu and “aims at building self-reliance of disadvantaged groups by alleviating poverty through sustained income generating programmes.” Read a BBC article about the work of Hand in Hand or visit the organization’s website.

movie: Poop scene, women washing clothes in public pool.
reality: Yep, sewage and water are not sexy issues but they are huge. Informal settlements such as Dharavi, though they are often referred to as slums, are larger than most cities in the world — yet basic services are lacking. Lack of access to clean water and sewage leads to poor health outcomes for children and adults. The Society for Human and Environmental Development (SHED) works on these important issues in Dharavi; the writing on the website is a bit random and hard to wade through, but here’s a much better article on their work.

movie: People climb on garbage heaps, picking through refuse and living there.
reality: Yes, this is how some of the poorest Indians eke out a living. ACORN International’s Dharavi Project is working to organize rag pickers and waste collectors (those children climbing the garbage piles in the movie) in Dharavi. The international wing of ACORN is affiliated with the U.S. ACORN “community organizers” who were subject of a manufactured controversy during the Obama campaign. Both ACORNs do amazing, from-the-ground-up community organizing that aims to empower the disempowered to advocate for their own rights and make needed changes in their own community, rather than take a top-down “charity” approach.

movie: Children of the Dharavi slum go through all kinds of shit, no adults help them.

reality: yeah, children of Dharavi go through all kinds of shit. The adults and organizations around them are severely under-funded to meet the need. Maybe that’s where we in the privileged West can make a contribution, if we educate ourselves a little bit. So in addition to the organizations above, here are few more groups and resources:

SNEHA, the Society of Nutrition, Education & Health Action, was formed in 1999 “by a group of concerned doctors and social workers to address the special needs of women and children in urban slums.” Here’s an article about their Kishori Project in Dharavi: “In Asia’s largest slum, the Kishori project is introducing young girls to reproductive healthcare, pregnancy care, HIV/AIDS and more. As added inducement, low cost trainings in computers and tailoring are drawing them to the centre for a chance to earn and save money.”

“Slumdog Millionaire” actor and Bollywood star Anil Kapoor has donated his entire fee from the movie to a children’s charity called Plan India. Article here, Plan India website here.

Dharavi.org is a multimedia wiki website designed to gather information, images, and ideas on Dharavi in Mumbai. Specifically, it offers a space to discuss the Dharavi Redevelopment Project and its alternatives.

*DO YOU KNOW of an organization, site, or resource that should be on this list? Please post a comment on the blog, or email me and I’ll update the list.

**PLEASE NOTE that this list is not vetted thoroughly; you should always check out organizations to your own satisfaction before transferring funds, especially internationally.

Slumdog vs. Oscar the Grouch

Posted on 22 February 2009 by Minal

Tonight I get to do two things I’ve never done before: be part of a webcast, and act like an official Oscar critic! If you feel like chatting about “Slumdog Millionaire,” please tune in tonight right after the Best Picture Award is announced. Here are the details for how you can join the conversation in a few different ways — by phoning in like a conference call, listening on the web, or following it on Twitter:

http://bit.ly/slumdogdeconstruct

I usually consider this Oscar better company than this one, so it’ll be a fun night for me to blend the two. Most of the other official commentators on the webcast, including the journalists, are quite gung-ho on the movie. I didn’t hate it, but I definitely had issues which I wrote about here and here, so I get to be the critical voice on the panel.

But opinions are like, um, bellybuttons (to put it politely); everybody has one. I’m less interested in my own opinion than in how the film made me think about art-making and the ethics of telling someone else’s story, something I struggled with as I wrote Leaving India. Anyway, it will be interesting to see what everyone has to say.

Have fun tonight, whether or not you’re spending it with Oscar!

New website, events, pre-orders, and soon … books!

Posted on 18 February 2009 by Minal

I’m super excited about my spiffy new website (http://www.minalhajratwala.com) and lots of exciting events coming up in March and April! Please come by and say hi if you’re in NY, DC, LA, or SF, and invite your friends too.

I am staying very busy, counting down to launch date… Today I heard from my editor that the finished, hardcover, REAL books are in her hands. How exciting! I haven’t even seen one yet. They ship out from the warehouse today, on their way to bookstores all over the country, getting ready for the launch date of March 18!

People have been asking me how they can get a signed copy of the book, and I’m so grateful to the wonderful people at my neighborhood independent bookstore, the Booksmith, for setting up a nifty way for friends and readers anywhere to get a signed, personalized copy. Basically you order online with a credit card (http://booksmith.com/autograph.html), send an email to orders@booksmith.com, or call them at 1-800-493-7323, tell them how many books you want and how you want them personalized. Then I drop by the store and sign your copy just the way you want it. They send it to you or the person you designate, with free gift wrapping upon request! This is a wonderful way to support not only me, but also independent publishing. Order before March 3 for quickest results.

I also want to send out mega thanks to Justin Emerson for doing such an amazing job wrangling all of my non-techie ideas into a beautiful website. Hope you enjoy browsing around, and let me know what you think. Feedback, etc., more than welcome.

love,

Minal

Man-on-the-street reviews of Leaving India

Posted on 6 February 2009 by Minal

My inbox was full o’ fun today.

I was alerted to the the first pre-pub customer review on Amazon.com. (Amazon gives certain advance copies to certain readers, who agree to write reviews.) Mr. von Moller called Leaving India “a rousing tour through a century of world events and personalities as seen from the perspective of one family, highly recommended” and gave it four stars, meaning that he liked my book more than Harold Bloom, less than a vibrating wristwatch/alarm clock.

I also received a wonderful email from my friend Thomas Connor, a Chicago Sun-Times music editor, who has a media copy. I asked him if I could post it, because it’s far more entertaining than anything I’ve ever written here. Here it is:

Subject: You need to have some book signings at the local shelters

Let me see if I can re-create the conversation I had with a shaggy man on the train to work this morning. He shuffled down the aisle toward me — weathered black ball cap with a no-fur button and an Obama button, immensely tangled salt-and-pepper hair just past his shoulders, nubby teeth like a prehistoric fish, a gigantic white peace-sign medallion around his neck. They always speak to me, despite the earbuds. That defense never works.

“Have you been to India?” he was asking, pointing to your book in my hands.

“No.”

“Are you gonna go?” His smile was genuine, harmless, unmedicated.

“I’d sure like to.”

He then informed me that the “most virtuous woman in the world” lived there, and a few sentences later I realized he was discussing Mother Teresa.

“Is Bombay the biggest city? Maybe Calcutta?”

“Probably Bombay,” I said, wholly ignorant of the facts. “Mumbai,” I said, correcting myself.

“So why are you reading about India?”

“Because my friend wrote this book.”

He was astonished. “You know someone who wrote a book?!”

I pointed to your photo. He leaned in, squinting through his high-fashion-for-1981 prescription frames. He attempted to pronounce your name.

“She’s be-yoooooo-tiful,” he said, semi-entranced. “She looks lovely in pink.” (Yes, he actually said, “lovely.”)

“My mother wrote a book.”

“She did?” Skepticism reared in my head. “What’s it called.”

” ‘Baby Doctor.’ It’s about pediatric medicine. She invented it.” (It’s actually on Amazon: ‘Baby Doctor: A Pediatrician’s Training’ by Perri Klass.)

He then pulled out of his bag a dog-eared copy of “Persuasion” by Jane Austen. (Yes, Jane Austen.) “I’m reading this. See, girls see me reading this on the train, they think, ‘Hey, what a sensitive guy!’ “

I instantly love this city muppet. He’s not concerned that women will look at him and think, “Eek! homeless freak!” Which even I did. He’s convinced his soul — or at least the appearance of it — will triumph, that a woman’s heart will be won over by what a man reads and thinks. Well, he’d won me over.

He then thought for a moment. “Even though she’s your friend and all, what’s your honest opinion of the book?” Meaning yours. “Can you be objective?”

“I can,” said I. “I picked it up because my friend wrote it, but I confess I’m really engrossed in it now. I’ve learned so much already. It’s beautifully written and secretly informative, like the best histories.” Truly.

“And do you hope to marry this woman one day?”

I laughed. “No, no.” I paused. Does one just come out to a strange homeless person? Probably not.

“You already have a significant other?” (Yes, he actually said “significant other.”)

“I do.”

“And she doesn’t mind that you’re reading this book by such a beautiful woman?”

“No, no.”

“Well, then you have a very strong relationship.” Now he tugged at the peace medallion, which was dull white and looked as if it were made out of some kind of elementary school-grade craft clay. Remind me to donate to the city’s shelter art programs.

“This is my divining rod,” he said, brandishing the medallion, which I now could see was shaped like a heart. “It’s a peace sign, but it’s shaped like a heart, so it’s all about peace, love and” — and he knocked it against his forehead — “understanding!”

He then touched the medallion to his temple. “I’m going to predict something for you.” He closed his eyes with this thing on his temple, like he was Carnac, and said, “I think you’re going to have a really wonderful February 14th. And when you do you’ll stop and think about that pinhead you met on the train. … OK, I’m going to go sit over there now. I’ll let you read.”

And he did. He shuffled to the middle of the car and sat across from a real Scandinavian beauty, I must say. The dance was delightful. She noticed him in her peripheral vision, crossed her legs, swept blond hair from her eyes, spine straightening on alert. I can hear her: “Eek!” He harumphed into his seat, tried his best to appear nonchalant, and … slipped out the Jane Austen. I saw her scan the cover as I was getting off at Fullerton …

Thanks, Thomas!

‘Slumdog’ non-millionaires

Posted on 27 January 2009 by Minal

Thanks to Marian Yalini for pointing out today’s article on the compensation paid to the two stunning child stars of “Slumdog Millionaire” (so far, less than $5000 total, for a movie that is making hundreds of millions of dollars).

When I first saw the film and wrote about it here, I wondered what was up. The children made the film into the incredible success it is now; by comparison, the adult actors were far less compelling. But the huge power gap between the filmmakers and the children whose stories they were aiming to tell seemed like an obvious place to ask questions about exploitation, compensation, and the ethics of making art.

Now it looks like the media is catching up and asking questions about the story behind the magic curtain. Even assuming the filmmakers are trying their best to be fair, there is such a tragic gap between a liberal, First World idea of “fairness,” and a sense of actual equality.

So the filmmakers argue the pay was generous: for the two stars, 30 days of child labor was paid more than an annual wage for an adult from the same community (most do manual or domestic labor). Plus the kids are now enrolled in school, with a “lump sum” promised when they come of age, though their parents claim not to know how much money that involves. (No word on what the children playing minor roles, some of whom were incredible, were paid.)

But what about comparing these young actors’ pay with the wages of the people actually doing equivalent work — that is, the other actors in the film? Typically the star of a major movie gets both “fixed” and “contingent” pay: a certain amount up front, and a certain percentage if the film makes a lot of money.

Of course, that doesn’t happen just because the filmmakers feel like sharing their profits. It happens when there’s a level playing field: when an actor, especially a child actor, is being represented by an agent who is skilled in negotiating his or her best interests.

That kind of fairness is a lot less likely to happen if the child is being represented by a parent who doesn’t speak English and is laying ill with tuberculosis under a plastic tarp in the middle of the world’s largest slum.

I feel uneasy about Hollywood and Bollywood for so many reasons, and I don’t quite know why but I’ve never been able to take movies as “all in good fun.” Maybe it’s that I lack the capacity to suspend my disbelief; I want to be able to believe what I’m seeing. It’s unsettling for an experience that seems so real to turn out to be false, not on a literal narrative level, but on an ethical one.

Today’s wee glimpse of the “Slumdog” backstory illuminates a truth about the grinding and relentless nature of systemic poverty in Mumbai and elsewhere, in a way that the film, with its glossy violence, only pretends to do.

To-do lists … Part 2: Quest for Solutions

Posted on 20 January 2009 by Minal

(Start with Part 1 here, if you want)

Part 2: Quest for Solutions

In Which Our Heroine Searches the World (Wide Web) and Shares What She Finds.

Good news: There are tons of options out there, so it should be easy to find something that works for almost any need.

My criteria again: I want something that is

• free or very low cost
• groups to-do items in categories
• assigns due dates/deadlines
• has priority levels, preferably visual
• lets me estimate how much time each task will take
• has easy integration into daily life, email/calendar
• can be worked on online or offline
• is syncable to ipod Touch
• is easy to use
• and did I mention free or nearly free?

Yep, I am one tough cupcake. So here’s what I tried.

Task List from Google Labs

Because I’m a dedicated gmail and google calendar user, I was excited to try this brand-new feature, just launched in December 2008.

Setup and learning curve: assuming you already have gmail, 5 to 15 minutes.

Pros: Integration integration integration!

• I *love* having my to-dos be right in my gmail window, which is the web page I look at dozens of times a day. I can choose whether to have the list be subtle, down the left-hand column along with the Chat and Label areas, or more in-my-face, popped up on the bottom right like a live chat.
• It’s very easy to click on an email and turn it into a “task,” which then shows up in the Task List by the subject line of the email, and also has a link back to the email itself, even if I’ve already archived the email.
• Basic task creation is nice, simple, easy and intuitive to use.

Cons: Key features missing.

• I so wish this could be integrated with google calendar and not just gmail. You can set a due date (though it’s kind of hidden, so at first I thought you couldn’t), but there is no way to link the due date to your google calendar, which just seems silly.
• More suitable for a few items than for dozens; it’s just too unwieldy to put everything into one big long list. You can make subcategories, sort of, by indenting; and you can set priorities, sort of, by moving items up and down the list. But not really.
• The interface is kind of tiny and I kept having the task and the due-date calendar overlap so that I couldn’t actually make it work. Plus you can’t see your other tasks while you’re creating a due date for a new task, which I need to do in order to see when I have time for the new task. Very fidgety.

Bottom line: I’m keeping it installed, and I am using it as a kind of extra flagging system for emails that need action, or things I remember while I’m in my email. If you love gmail and you’re not trying to do much project management via your to-do list, it might work for you. But for my overall needs, it’s not sufficient.

So then I surfed around and quickly found Brian Benziger’s 25 To Do Lists To Stay Productive, which is a fabulous starting place. I agree with most of his notes but his list is from 2006, so a couple of the lists that he lists (say wha? yeah, I said the lists that he lists) are no longer extant, while others have been developed and now do much more. Many of these, like the popular Ta-Da, were great in and of themselves but still too simple for my confused, I mean complex, needs. (You might like ’em though, so do check out Brian’s list.) Brian led me to…

Rough Underbelly

Setup and learning curve: 10 to 15 minutes; requires registration.

Pros: Very fun! Makes work into a game.

• You assign 1 to 10 “points” to each task. You can use either their system (“billable” work or getting new business gets you 10 points, whereas maintaining a professional relationship gets you 1 point) or you can make up your own mental list about how you assign value to your tasks. When you finish a task, you “get” the points. Then you get to see a cute little line graph showing you how awesomely productive you were today. Fun!
• Also has a nice little timer, so if you keep it onscreen as you work through your tasks, you can see how long you are taking on each task.

Cons:

• Can’t categorize tasks (other than by the number of points assigned). I need categories, cuz I can’t wrap my brain around assigning relative importance to items in diverse areas of my life. Is “buy cat food” worth more or fewer points than “write pitch letter to Terry Gross”? I’d hate to see my cat and my publicist battle that one out.
• Again, no due dates.

Bottom line: Excellent for what it is, a productivity booster for your one-person small business or single project. Not for multifunctional me.

Rough Underbelly is based on, and led me to, the Printable CEO, where someone even more obsessive than me has created a bunch of download-and-print productivity forms. They are designed for you to keep next to you as you work. I can’t really review them because I haven’t used it yet, but it’s intriguing enough to mention. I will try out the Emergent Task Planner at some point, I think, which is billed as “realistic” daily planner. Yes, that IS what I need. It takes a little time to click around the site and understand what the different tools are and how to use them, but he has a neat approach that basically involves turning your day into 15-minute chunks of time and then accomplishing things bit by bit, which makes total fabulous sense.

Back at Brian’s top-25 list, I tried a few more things and then landed at:

Remember The Milk

Setup and learning curve: 10 to 30 minutes; requires registration; more to explore after that, if you want.

Pros: Lotsa functions, integration … task-list heaven. I’ve already set it as my home page.

• At the free level, this site lets me input basically everything I was looking for: tasks, categories, due dates, visual priority levels (1,2,3), and how much time each task will take. Hoorah!
• I love that I can create several different lists. I can also create “tags” to group items across categories. For example, I’ve tagged items “phone” so that when I have a window of time to make phone calls, I can pull up “make hair appointment” and “call marketing person” even though those relate to different lists (Personal and Book).
• The “Location” feature lets you map your tasks geographically. For me, I’ve started using it to identify things I’ll want to do in New York vs things I’ll want to do in DC. Then I can view all my New York items together, whether they involve personal friends or book tour business or something else.
• I love having lots of options for how I want to look at my tasks — just today’s tasks, for example, no matter what list I put them on.
• Calendaring: A quick installation, and now my to-do items show up my google calendar, where tasks due on a particular day appear as a collapsible list at the top of the day with a little checkmark icon (sort of like the weather, if you’ve added a weather calendar). I can edit the list, add tasks, and check them off as completed without leaving google calendar.
• Offline access: This is great for when I’ll be on an airplane trying to get work done, but without internet.
• Reminders: Option to get pinged in advance of tasks being due, via email, mobile, or your instant-message system.
• Upgrade to the $29 Pro level promises syncing with my iPod Touch (or iPhone). Haven’t shelled out for this feature yet but if it works as well as everything else here, I’ll be delighted.

Cons:

• I have some quibbles with the user interface. For example, a checkmark in the empty box next to a task intuitively, to me, should mean the task is completed. Instead it means the task is “selected,” and I have to click on something else to actually mark it completed. Hmm. There are several things like this that are just slightly annoying.
• Several of the functions seem to only be accessible via keyboard shortcuts, with no menus. This makes the learning curve steeper than it needs to be, since it requires memorizing “m” for multiple-item selection mode, etc. Not quite as intuitive as it could be.

Bottom line: THE WINNER! Even though I’m a vegan, and not so crazy about looking at the little exploited cow icon every time I sign on (kidding… sort of…), Remember the Milk is the site for me. It’s so very functional that I’m willing to invest extra time in learning how to use it and overlook the slight awkwardness of the interface. And I keep finding new uses for it.

And that is so much more than you ever wanted to know about to-do lists, isn’t it?

Next time, the million-dollar question: Is all this actually making me more productive????

To-do lists … Part 1: The Listmaker in Distress

Posted on 19 January 2009 by Minal

Warning: This story is not for all audiences. Specifically, you should only try to read this if you are an organization geek. Do you fondle office supplies and make endless to-do lists and color-code your files? OK, then you might be interested. Otherwise your eyes may glaze over and you may fall asleep, drool on your keyboard, drown your computer in saliva, and thereby invalidate your computer warranty which usually doesn’t cover water damage. I take no responsibility for these or other ill effects.

Part 1: The Listmaker in Distress

In Which We Meet Our Heroine, Understand Her Trials, and Watch Her Muddle Through the Muck of Ill-Fated Non-Solutions

(Well… I liked writing the subhead, but I don’t think I can affect the Canterbury Tales momentum for much longer. I hope you, dear reader, will accept my apologies for the abrupt shift in tone.)

In my constant quest to organize myself, and especially now in my busy busy pre-book-launch phase (8 weeks to go! omg!), I have been desperate for a way to keep track of all the things I need to do. So I went web surfing and guess what, many brilliant listmakers with actual technical skills have come up with ways to help ME! How sweet of them. I thought I would share my dilemma (this part) and some of the cool tools I found (tomorrow).

I am basically a listmaker at heart. I tend to make my to-do lists in various journals and on scraps of paper. I then lose track of them, so I am often writing a new version of what is more or less the same list because I can’t find the earlier list(s). This is not so bad, since I actually love making lists, but it is kind of a waste of time. It would be better if I used my love of listmaking to make new lists, I think, like the list of impossible dreams made possible, or a list of the ways cat love is superior to human love, or a list of vegan ingredients to try putting into cookies. Maybe I need a list of cool lists to make… ok, so you see the problem.

I also like to group my to-do items into categories, like: Book tour tasks. Phone calls to make. House stuff. Things to buy.

Even when I have it together enough to have such a list and start doing the items on it, often I get super stressed because the list of things that I need to do is way more than I can realistically do in a day or even week. I usually don’t realize this ahead of time, so I scale the peaks of valiant productivity and then crash in valleys of despair at how much is left to do.

So what I need is a realistic sense not only of the tasks to be done and deadlines, but also of priorities and how much time each one is going to take. In my heart of hearts, I believe that things like writing an email or doing laundry take … zero minutes. You just do em in between other things, right? It is amazing to me that actually, when I track it, writing a work-related email — original content, not just a reply to something quick — takes an average of 15 minutes. It just does. Likewise, most things that I need to do take a lot longer than I want to admit.

I’ve tried various paper systems. Lost the papers or the lists got too complicated to keep on paper; scratched-out items and long doodly lines going every which way made me feel less not more organized. From time to time I realize it would be good to harness the power of computers…

So I made a pretty Excel spreadsheet with colors and categories and columns. The main problem was that it wasn’t really integrated into my daily life, so I would forget to look at it for days on end. Even if I put it on my computer desktop, or printed it out and posted it somewhere I could see it, I just didn’t find it satisfying or enjoyable; in fact, looking at 65 items at a time made me feel very overwhelmed, even if most of them were off in the future. Also, it couldn’t be very easily synced to my ipod Touch, which is a feature I’ll want when I’m traveling.

Bottomline I want and need a centralized place to sort out all my ideas into lists, then prioritize and see them daily in a way that will actually help me get the things done. And of course it has to be easy to use — because making the list can’t be more time-consuming than actually doing the things on the list! — and free or very low cost, because even though I am empress of my own universe, my income is definitely that of a, um, writer.

TOMORROW:

Part 2: Quest for Solutions

In Which Our Heroine Searches the World (Wide Web) and Shares What She Finds.