Email has become central to the way people work and socialise, so why not use it to keep track of your appointments and tasks? That’s exactly what I Want Sandy does.

It’s a free service that acts as an electronic assistant ­ just send off an email regarding an upcoming task or meeting, and Sandy will send back an email reminder when it’s due.

The service understands simple English commands such as ‘remind me to go to the dentist at 4.00 this afternoon’ and can be used for keeping track of to-do lists, birthdays, meetings ­ in fact, any important event.

Sandy also uses tags (categories like ‘bills’, ‘homework’ or ‘rehearsals’) so that it’s easy to pull out all the tasks and appointments that relate to a particular item.