On a recent Saturday morning, my wife and I dropped the kids off at my parents house. Dressed in our Sunday clothes and with our temple bags in the car, we were going to the Temple. As I was walking out of my parent’s house, I had the thought “when does my Temple Recommend expire?” I think you know what happened next: I pulled it out, and it had expired the end of May, exactly one week prior. 🙁
I ended up working on my laptop, in the Stake Center nextdoor to the Temple, while my wife participated in intiatory work.
Here’s the problem: neither email nor calendars were designed to help you both remember and accomplish things. Calendars keep your schedule, and can be used to remind you to do certain things at certain times, but they’re not good at helping you get them done, or scheduling based on when you completed something.
For example, if I set my calendar to remind me on May 15th to renew my recommend, but didn’t get in to see a member of the Stake Presidency until June 2nd, then my reminder event would need to be moved to June for the next year. Great solutions get out of your way, and don’t require that kind of management.
It’s no secret we’re big fans of Asana around here, we’ve posted about how to use it for Bishoprics and Ward Councils, as well as talked about the same usage in a Live Hangout. Asana is an ideal solution for managing your personal tasks, and reminding you to do things. It works great to remind yourself to renew your recommend. Just set a task to renew your temple recomend, that reccurs every 730 days (2 years) after completion of the task.
A task that is scheduled based on the last time it was completed, will be more accurate. When you get your recommend from a member of the Stake Presidency, complete the task. Now, Asana will remind you to do it again in 730 days. That will be June, in 2 years. And with the mobile app on your phone, you’ll get a reminder at that time.