The human brain is a wonderful thing, but it’s a bit faulty as a tool for remembering things. Luckily for us (and for our frazzled brains), technology has stepped in to help out.

With the proper habits and the right tools, you and your brain won’t have to remember a thing again.

There are a host of tech tools that can help with taking notes, managing projects and to-dos, and manage your email and calendar needs just fine.

To really never have to remember a thing again, you have to combine a few tools in smart and comprehensive fashion, and even more important, you have to develop specific habits that will ensure that things don’t slip between the cracks … because the cracks just get bigger and bigger with more time and more data.

A Comprehensive System

What are all the things you need to remember? There are many types of data, from phone numbers and emails to tasks and projects, from follow-ups to status reports, from errands and appointments to websites and photos, and from random ideas to notes for class or about a book, etc..

A comprehensive system will handle all these things and allow you to save them, access them, and be reminded of them with ease. There shouldn’t be a lot of fuss.

Sound about right? Let’s take a look at the system and tools — then the habits — needed to do all this.

Setup

This might sound a bit complicated to some, but I assure you all of these tools are simple, easy to use, powerful, fast, and fun to use. These tools allow you to capture any information, at any time, and retrieve the information quickly and easily.

Let’s take a look at how:

1. Evernote: This is a great app for storing just about any information you want. In fact, if you wanted to simplify your setup, you could almost just use Evernote to remember everything. It can hold notes, clip web pages, store photos and audio notes, and more. Really cool feature: snap a picture of something on your camera phone, and send it to Evernote … then Evernote will scan the image and you can search for words within the note. This makes sending yourself notes really easy — you can take pictures of business cards, menus, receipts, documents and more … and it’s automatically searchable. Evernote is available on PCs, Macs, on the web and on mobile devices such as Blackberries and the iPhone … and it syncs very easily across all these platforms, which makes it available from anywhere. Need to find a note while on the road? Just access Evernote with your mobile device and do a quick search. It really works well for just about everything.
2. Gmail: Gmail uses archive and search (along with labels if you like) to quickly store and retrieve any information you need. You can send quick emails to Evernote from Gmail, allowing you to turn emails into notes that will be retrieved from anywhere. You can also use a Firefox plugin to combine Gmail with Gcal (see below) to see emails and calendar in one view.
3. Gcal: Also known as Google Calendar, Gcal is accessible from anywhere and just works really well. I set up reminders if I want to make sure to remember something, and it’ll send me an email or text message. Need to remember to follow up on something? Set a reminder in Gcal for one week from now. Get used to setting up reminders quickly in your calendar, and you won’t have to remember anything.
4. Anxiety: It’s very lightweight and very simple. When you receive an email that requires an action, just quickly add a to-do item to Anxiety (it just takes a quick keystroke to do that).
5. Jott: This handy app ties everything together, and is very valuable for when you’re on the go. Just call Jott from your cell phone and leave a message, and it’ll be sent to your email … or to another service you specify.

4 Critical Habits

If you want a system to work, you’ve got to develop the habits to make it work. It’s that simple — without the habits, the system will fall apart — always.

Focus on developing these habits for one month. If you can do that, the habits should stick.

1. Make a note, immediately. This is perhaps the most important habit. If you can teach yourself to make a note of things right away, immediately, without putting it off, you’re halfway there. Someone give you some contact information? Make a note and save it, right now. Receive an email that requires an action? Put it on a to-do list, right now. Want to remember this website, or have a receipt you need to save? You get the picture. Don’t put it off.
2. Use your lists and tools, consistently. The next most important habit. A list, a calendar, a note-taking app … none of these are worth anything if you don’t use them on a consistent basis. For some of these tools, that means checking them daily. For others, it might be 2-3 times daily or even more often. Tie these actions to something already firmly established in your daily routine: for example, check your calendar and email list right when you get into work, check your email before you leave work, or check your notes right when you get back from lunch. Find what works for you, but you get the idea.
3. Make it quick and painless. If it’s difficult to add a note or save information, you’ll put it off sometimes. Same thing with retrieving the info — you don’t want to go digging through folders or waiting on a slow application to load just to get something. You want it fast and easy, or it won’t work.
4. Archive and search, don’t file. Along the lines of the above item, it’s better to use a quick search function than to have to remember where you saved something. If it takes too long to find, you will stop using your system. Archiving stuff (instead of filing into folders) and then searching work fastest — Gmail is one of the best examples of that in action.

Note-taking Tools

1. OneNote: This is the default note-taking tool for anyone who uses Microsoft Office, and it’s very powerful.

2. Yojimbo: A Mac-only program, Yojimbo is beloved by its many users for its power, flexibility, and easy of use. It’s super fast to add things into Yojimbo, which is a great selling point.

3. Backpack and Packrat: One of the best of many web apps for collecting info, Backpack is versatile and easy to use. You can store notes, text, images, links and more … and send items via email and SMS text messages. It also has a calendar and reminders. For Mac OSX users, there’s also a desktop application, Packrat, that works well with Backpack for off-line needs.

Calendars

1. iCal: Free, simple, but great calendar program for Mac users.

2. 30 Boxes: Good online program, but not as good as Google Calendar.

3. Sunbird: Open-source, cross-platform calendar app from Mozilla, the creator of Firefox.

On-the-go Tools

1. Mobile devices: the iPhone, Blackberry and various PDAs are all good choices for capturing tasks and information on the go.

2. Pocket notebook: You can also go retro and use a small notebook (or index cards) for capturing data. I use a Moleskine pocket notebook. Enter the data into your computer when you get home.