If you haven’t seen the interesting discussion I’ve been having with Michelle, let me bring you up to speed. Michelle is looking for some help getting herself organized for the upcoming school year and has asked for my input. I am not a guru, but I’ve offered some help in the form of brainstorming possible solutions for her.
In the last exchange, she says:
The key questions for me seem to be: 1) Should I combine personal and professional calendars? 2) OR is it a good idea to have more than one? 3) paper or electronic? 4) if paper– which one? 5) if electronic- which one?
Because I think this is something many of us — myself included — struggle with, I’m posting this here instead of in a response to that older post.
On combining personal and professional calendars that’s how I roll. I don’t want to have to look in more than one place, or have the wrong calendar with me at the wrong time.
In the paper vs. electronic debate, I’ve been back and forth more times than I care to admit. Here’s how I see the pros and cons of each:
Paper The Good: Easier to see weeks and months at a glance; Doesn’t crash and destroy all your data; No sync-ing issues where events disappear or show up twice; Easy archiving that’s always forward- and backward-compatible
The Bad: Paper planners tend to be bulkier than the slickest PDAs and smartphones; If it’s lost it’s gone — no backup available for recovery; When you upgrade your phone/PDA will your calendar be compatible?
Electronic The Good: Usually extremely portable; Always backed up (as long as you remember to sync…); Can share calendars with others
The Bad: Remembering to sync (unless you’re on a BlackBerry connected to an Enterprise Server or a Windows Mobile device connected to Exchange 2003); Do your calendars play nicely with each other a la iCal and gCal?; Sometimes you don’t have Internet access; Sometimes you have a dead battery; Sometimes your device will crash
Before you send me any hate-mail, let me state that there are always exceptions to the above. When my Palm III crashed, I went back to paper. Then I got a Treo. Then it broke and I went to a Franklin-Covey system. So you see, it’s always a work in process.
My current calendaring system looks like this:
- I’m (finally!) exclusively on a Mac at work and at home.
- I use iCal to manage my calendars.
- I currently have 4 calendars in iCal:
- Work – For stuff I do during my work day. This is red.
- Night coverages – For evening stuff my wife might care about when she’s making plans for us. She is subscribed to this calendar in her own iCal. This is green.
- CSU – For grad school stuff. This is orange.
- Personal – For everything else. This is blue.
- I keep my work and school machines in sync with Spanning Sync and Google Calendar. I don’t think Spanning Sync was designed with the idea of keeping multiple machines in sync, but it works handily. Google Calendar is very useful for a number of reasons (say you’re on someone else’s computer and don’t have access to your iCal. Your PDA has a dead battery, and your paper copy fell in a puddle…), but I like it because it can send SMS reminders to your phone.
- On Friday, I print a hard copy of the current month and the next week. This gets Circa punched and stuck in my notebook.
- I sync all of this with my Nokia N73 using iSync.
This sounds a lot more complex than it actually is, but once you get the syncing set up, it pretty much takes care of itself.
That’s probably way more information than Michelle wanted, but there it is. I’m hopeful that this will help others who are pondering the questions of multiple calendars and whether to go digital or analog.
Great topic!
Having two or more calendars is an invitation to social and/or professional disaster.
I agree with Scott about having one calendar. Not only have I personally experienced the folly of more than one, but all the time management and business organization gurus whom I’ve met or read, recommend one and only one.
Electronic or paper? That’s a totally personal issue. Experience with each will tell the tale. I used to be a paper guy, but now I use ACT! for contact management and all around keeping my life in order. Synching can be an issue, but if you’re tech literate, not so much.
Main issue: ONE calendar.
I’m a little bit embarrassed that as a pretty tech-savvy individual, I had to Google to see what ACT! was…
Looks pretty nice! Thanks for weighing in!
I love this topic right now but I consider myself calendar crazy! I am converting from paper to my new treo, maybe! I use google calendars so I can share them at work with my secretary and teachers. I have quite a few Google calendars right now. Special class rotation calendar, staff bday and special event calendar, 0708 School activities calendar, MRI calendar (reading PD we do this year and have to have a lot of subs) I think there are more. In google calendars you can uncheck calendars you don’t want to view or check all of them and see every single thing going on in your universe at one time. I am still carrying my palm and treo right now but hope to convert to just palm. Just a personal preference.
Scott, ACT! is a business-oriented program, and I’ve been using it for years. That is, years before I began [trying] to get up to speed in this universe. I fully intend to explore everything you mentioned in your post above.
I’m always on the prowl for better ways!
Interesting to read how others tackle this issue. It truly is a personal decision and may take some time to determine which method works best for you. As tech savvy as I consider myself to be, I’ve chosen to use my appt book – works for me (this year). Who knows what I’ll do next year!
I like the paper solution, Karen. I find myself coming back to paper often.
I love the forms at DIY Planner because I can print ‘em, punch ‘em, and Circa-fy them quite easily.
And Melinda – I’m assuming you meant that you’re moving entirely to your Treo, right? You don’t want to carry two devices…
Thanks for your suggestions!
I am all for the paper! I have tried a Palm, google calerdar, etc… They always seem to work for me for a while….For the past two years I have been using a weekly calendar. The planner holds three years, so it is kind of interesting to flip through the previous year every once in a while. If you have re-occuring items it helps.
I have also converted to the handy dandy composition book. This is not for calendar purposes, but for just about everything else. If it comes up, it is in the book. I keep an index in the back for cross referencing. Meeting notes, to do lists, general observations, requests, it is not hard to make the composition book!
I think I just like to have everything together, on paper. I guess it is not the greenest way to go, but I did just pass on the gas powered weed wacker for the battery powered model!
Mike -
You need to drink the Levenger Circa Kool-Aid. You’ll never go back to the composition book again…