I think the advantage over yahoo or gmail is that this app texts you at random times throughout the day. If you know that you set a reminder at a certain time d

I think the advantage over yahoo or gmail is that this app texts you at random times throughout the day. If you know that you set a reminder at a certain time during the day, you'll instantly know that you're being reminded when your mobile gets notified. To get around this, I put in some randomization where the app messages you at random points throughout your working day, that way when your mobile buzzes, you don't know right away that it's from Mr. Goal. You can change the SMS frequency in your profile page under "SMS Frequency". It's a dropdown for now, but I've been doing some testing with a jQuery slider bar. As for actually achieving your goals, I think that one is more likely to get something done if they are consistently conscious about it. That's the rationale I have for now -- you'll make small adjustments to accomodate your goals. Speaking personally, most of my goals are not things that take years of effort to do; they simply require that I remain consistent and think + act about them often. There's definitely a lot to be said about the psychology behind reminders. For now, my strategy is to make the service seem as personal as possible without making it seem like it's artificially trying to grab your attention, like a real person would. I think that this blog post does a good job explaining some of the considerations: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/12/avoiding-the-uncanny-valley-of-user-interface.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/12/avoiding-the-uncann...