Well, around here the beginning of a new year means the coordinating of a new set of calendars.
I know, some of you are probably wondering what calendars have to do with being frugal. Well, being organized saves time, and when you save time you have more time to spend on being frugal. I think that being organized and having good time management is a frugal skill 🙂 What do you think, was that a stretch??
Yankee Bill and I each have a Day Planner, and there is a calendar in the kitchen. A good portion of yesterday afternoon was spent with the big kitchen calendar spread out on the kitchen table transcribing info from
Yankee Bill’s planner and the various activity calendars (church coffee hour schedule, lay reader schedule, drill schedule, MOPs schedule, the production schedule for the community theatre production I’m stage managing, etc). Yankee Bill had already put his new inserts in and put in all our planned vacations etc. My planner sat idly by, as I still haven’t purchased my inserts. . . .
Now, the Day Planner used to be the most important item for me back in my early working days in the Army. It was my “brain book” and held everything-meetings, appointments, birthdays, phone numbers, notes, invitations, bills. You name it, if I had to remember it it was in there.
Then came the conversion to a desk job. As I started to spend more time in front of the computer I started keeping my appointment and meeting reminders on there, because I could set nifty little pop up reminders to go off so I wouldn’t get engrossed in work and forget to go! But, being human, if I entered it into the computer I wouldn’t remember to also write it in my planner, so I’d get home and not have any clue what was on my plate for the next day. Yankee Bill solved that problem for me by buying me a Palm Pilot for my birthday one year that I could sync with my computer at work and home.
Then I left the Army and started staying home. Suddenly I wasn’t in front of the computer any more, and I didn’t need the palm quite so much. Big Sis (who had been a SAHM for a few years longer) suggested using one of those checkbook sized monthly calendars to keep track of Dr. appointments and playdates and such. It worked great! There was much less of a scheduled nature on my plate, and the small size fit perfectly in my purse so I always had it with me when I needed it. For a year or so it fitted my lifestyle perfectly.
Then slowly I started adding in some activities with church, and some acting with the community theatre, and a VERY part time job, and some volunteer work with the non profit theatre starting up in the community, and Princess started school. . . . and before you knew it, I was back up to the regular sized planner again!
All of this is my rather long winded way of saying that there is not one right way of keeping track of the details in your life. What matters is that you keep track of them in some way that works for you. The slickest, most complete organizational planner ever won’t do you a lick of good if you don’t look at it, write in it or carry it around with you! I admit to you, my biggest problem is remembering to look in mine daily.
Through all the permutations above, the one thing that stayed constant in our household was that we kept a calendar in the kitchen where both Yankee Bill and I wrote down items that were pertinent to us both. Trips. Evening meetings. Sporting events. Guys nights out. Anything where one or the other of us had committed our time.
We keep this calendar close to the main kitchen telephone. Lets face it, most phone conversations where someone is asking you to do something or attend something take place in the kitchen. Having the calendar right there prevents “double booking” and helps me to plan. It was a bit of a challenge at first to train both of us to write things down, but now it is just a habit.
I read something years ago that I plan to implement when the kids are older-using a different color pencil for each family member. It seems like once Princess and Buddy are at the ages of scout meetings and soccer practices etc, the color coding idea might come in handy.
A new thing I tried this year was printing out one of those “year on one page” calendars (I printed out the checked one, but in gray scale) and just highlighted the dates that we are on vacation/out of town/heavily committed (for example the week I am stage managing-I’m committed from 7-10pm 6 nights that week). I’m going to tape that up next to the big calendar just so I can see at a glance the “shape” of the year as far as where our “busy” periods are.
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