Time management is an eternal struggle with me.

I do try. I’ve got loads of calendars of every size, format, and price range, two or three for this year alone, and it’s only May. The small ones are too small to do any good. The big ones are too big to fit in any purse I want to carry. I dearly love PDA’s but don’t love the cost. Neither do I love it when they stall, crash, or just totally die.

Book person that I am, I’ve read books. Lots and lots of books.

I’ve read GTD. I’m reading ZTD. So far the latter seems better suited to my fragmented little brain.* But my problem still is that little notebook I’m supposed to carry around, to collect all the gems that pop into my head so I can later transfer them to my other lists, calendars, on and on…

I can carry the notebook. I can slip a nice Moleskine Cahier into the back pocket of my jeans. I can write things down in it. But for some reason, I can’t be sure I’ll get around to making the transfer from Cahier to calendar and list.

Years ago I had a similar frustration regarding my checkbook. Lots of great ideas as to how to manage the thing, but the actual balancing of the checkbook was a rare and arduous process.

Then came Quicken and online statements, and I learned that, given the right tools, I could accomplish the heretofore impossible. Now I balance my checkbook every single day, down to the penny. Well… mostly.

Could it be that, similarly, the right tool would come along one day that would make time management as simple as balancing my checkbook? Dare I hope?

I think I’ve found it: My cell phone, the one I already have. And a free (got that?) service called Jott.

Here’s how it works: I think of something I must remember to do. Or my sister tells me she’s having a party next Saturday. I speed-dial Jott’s phone number, tell the electronic lady all about it, and when I go back to my calendar and/or todo list, there it is in text, right on the list or calendar day where it belongs. There’s no second step to flake out on. There’s only one step, and the scheduling’s done.

Jott works with any of a bunch of online calendars, lists, and blog services – most of them free. You can even talk your tweet into Twitter.

I’ve ended up switching to Google Calendar and Toodledo, because the two services work well with Jott and with each other. You can set Toodledo up to integrate your list with your calendar. There’s a Firefox sidebar extension that let’s you check your list while you’re working on other pages.

Dare I hope that my struggle is over? Could this be what you’re looking for, too? If so… well okay, you can thank me for the tip. Or send chocolate.

*Leo Babauta, who wrote ZTD (Zen to Done) also has an excellent time management blog.

(Thanks to Nocturna for the image.)