TIP: CALENDARS

Everyone needs to have a calendar - whatever type and format works best for you!  More on that in a moment, but first, 3 time-saving (and sanity-saving!) calendar rules-to-live-by:

    1. Check calendar at least twice daily:
            - in preparation for next day, at close of "work day" or before bed
            - in preparation for today, upon arising, or at start of "work day"

    2. Check calendar BEFORE accepting new commitments, to avoid conflicts or overloaded days

    3. Enter new time commitments in calendar WHEN MADE - only takes seconds!
            - also enter any info needed for, such as phone#, location, what bring
            - can add these details over time, as made available, or thoughts arise


Next, some calendar "requirements" to help you assess your needs:

     Accessability - calendar needs to be at hand, ideally whenever you could be scheduling anything

     Ease & speed - calendar needs to be easy to update, quickly - so you'll "do it now"
            - needs to readable after making changes
            - ideally supports repeating appt., or cut/paste

     Reliability - calendar needs to
            - if digital, need to have automatic backup in place, to avoid data loss
            - if on multiple digital devices, need to have automatic sync in place

     Usability - calendar format needs to work for you!
            - e.g. I love UK format (Monday > Sunday), over USA (Sunday > Saturday)
            - e.g. I love color-coding entries, such as work, appts, drive time, exercise, fun

And as promised back in opening sentence, we close with calendar options:

     Multiple digital devices

With Dropbox, I had automatic backup & syncing working very nicely for 2 laptops.  But then I started travelling, so no longer near a laptop most of my day, and added an iPhone: Dropbox will sync data among laptops & iPhone, but format too small on iPhone to be useful.  Hopefully "there's an app for that!" too -  please let me know if you've found anything useful!

     Single digital device

Be sure you have an automatic backup in place, such as Dropbox, for whatever calendar format you use.

     Paper

May be old-fashioned, but meets all the requirements, except cut/paste, and perhaps readability after making changes - ink hard to overwrite, pencil hard to read.  Lacks the search functions of digital calendars, and takes storage space to retain previous years of calendars.