When I'm jotting down a task that needs to be done the next time I'm with my wife, such as discussing options for our next vacation or exploring college savings plans, I can tag these '@christine'. That way, when I get home I can just pull up all the tasks with her name as the tag and run through the checklist. This basic approach works as well for colleagues as it does for family members, of course.

Of course, location tags still have relevance, but in a broader sense now. I'm still apt to use '@hardwarestore' or '@mall' for shopping items. And I still like to keep lists for things to do on my next visit to a particular town, as in '@austin'.

My favorite tag of all, however, is '@braindead," which I use to tag to-do items that aren't particularly time sensitive but can be accomplished with almost no psychic energy.

So despite the fact that I'm now almost constantly in front of some kind of computer or phone, and I nearly always have an Internet connection, tags have retained real significance in my productivity system. If you've abandoned tags in your own system, you might consider reintroducing them in a more flexible way.