Last week I talked about my lists, so this week I have to talk about my calendars. The lists are basically detailed versions of the calendars.
So many calendars, plus the one I forgot to include in the picture. Note the mix of cute animals and hot Italians, as mentioned in a previous post.
Growing up, we only had one calendar in the house, one clock in the living room, and my dad’s alarm clock. My parents forgot events and ran late all the time. As a teenager, my room had multiple calendars and clocks. No matter where I looked, there was a calendar and clock to remind me of all of the stuff that I was not going to do.
By the time my early twenties hit, I noticed that I had become a bit OCD about many things, including time. I didn’t want time to be in charge of me; I should be in charge of time. Since I wasn’t a Time Lord, I decided that I probably only needed one calendar, one clock, and maybe a watch. I tried to track everything in one desk calendar and one planner that I carried with me at all times. If I didn’t put the same items in both calendars, though, I would inevitably look at the wrong calendar and forget to do important tasks. This was in the days before auto-syncing with Goophones and Ipples and all that mess. You had to manually sync your calendars, planners, To Do lists, and address books. I tried to go through and do a thorough update every January, but the other 11 months of the year gave me trouble.
Nowadays, I have different calendars for different themes. For example, I have a calendar with my bills’ due dates that I keep near the desktop computer because that’s where I pay my bills. (I have plenty of bills set to autopay, but too many of them charge a “convenience” fee for autopay, so I pay those as they are due. My annoyance with “convenience” fees deserves its own blog post.) For anyone concerned with my lack of tech usage, I also have plenty of calendars and reminder apps on my phone, but I still find the physical act of drawing a check mark on a calendar or crossing an item off a To Do list more gratifying than tapping a checkbox on a Goophone. When I’m motivated to keep up with the calendars, they work well. When I’m lazy or mopey, they don’t, and that’s whether I’m using a paper calendar or cellular mobile device. I’ve got my calendars for the year set up now, so here’s hoping this isn’t a lazy and mopey year. Now then, time to cross “Take a nap” off of my To Do list.
The Scarlet Loser 