New Years usually brings vows of organization-so I thought that this would be a perfect time to re-post this two part series (originally posted in January of 2008) on the why and how of staying organized with a planner and calendar!
It’s a New Year, and its time to talk about keeping a calendar! I know, you may be thinking “What does keeping a calendar have to do with being organized. And just how is Jenn going to tie that into frugality?”
Well, knowing what you have to do and when you have to do it is the very essence of organizing your time-and time, although free, is a non renewable resource. Once it’s gone, it’s gone!
When we fail to keep our time and appointments organized we wind up being surprised at the last minute. These last minute and forgotten events can cost you money. Here are some examples
You forgot that you signed up to bring food for an event (be it children’s birthday party, church coffee hour or workplace potluck) so you have to run out and purchasing premade at a premium-rather than cooking using sale purchased items.
You forgot a birthday and have to purchase an emergency gift (which isn’t even all that great) at a local store (again at a premium), make a trip into town specifically for the item (costing time and gas money) and possibly incur priority mailing costs just to get it there on time.
You forgot that you have a meeting on a weeknight until the day of-there is no time to cook dinner before you have to leave so you buy takeout.
You forgot that your credit card was due and mail the payment in a week late, incurring late charges.
I think we can all agree that keeping track of the dates and deadlines in your life is a beneficial organizational goal-and that it can save you money.
There are so many different styles and types of calendars in all sorts of price ranges, from the $170 Franklin Covey Executive Planner, to the wall calendars your local bank gives away for free, and then the whole gamut of things in between.
At different points in my life I’ve used different styles of calendars.
Photo by imeleven via flickr.comThrough my school career (probably from about 5th grade through college) I used small “student” style planners. Big enough to keep track of assignments, work schedule, and club meetings.
Photo by arellis49 via flickr.com
note: we are not cowboy’s fans.
It was hard to find a picture of a plain wall calendar.Once Yankee Bill and I were married, it became quickly apparent that although we both kept our own planners, we needed some method to keep track of events that effected us both. We started keeping a wall calendar where we each would mark down anything that both of us would need to know. Social events, weekend trips, business trips etc.
Photo by Cat Sidh via Flickr.com
For most of my working career I used a 3 ring binder style (5X8″ pages) with both month and daily pages. The binder style allowed me to include lots of additional information that I need to carry around-every thing from phone lists to my spreadsheet full of parts serial numbers. It was packed with stuff.
My pda was not this cool 🙂Near the end of my time in the Army I was at a desk job and used Microsoft Outlook at work-rather than having to both type in my appointments/events and then also write them in a planner I started using a palm pilot that could be synched with my computer.
When I started as a Stay at Home Mom I found that I didn’t have as much to keep track of. I was home with two preschool age children who participated in no clubs or classes (other than preschool). I was not yet volunteering for more than the very occasional event at church. There wasn’t a lot to keep track of. A small, inexpensive “checkbook” style planner that showed a month at a time was plenty to keep my schedule in line. Plus it conveniently fit in my purse.
Now I’ve gotten busier. I tried going back to a three ring style, but it was too big. Too big to carry around, and way more room than I needed to keep track of my life. So I’ve gone to a student style planner for my personal planner. It is a bit bigger than the checkbook style, but has both a monthly and weekly calendar. Then I use a large desk calendar too keep track of the family.
Tomorrow I’ll show you exactly how we work our calendar, and give you some other hacks and ideas for calendar management with a busy family.
Want more great organization ideas? Check out Organizing your Computer Files, Divide and Conquer 1 & Divide and Conquer 2.
I am doing the following:
On the fridge: Dry Erase Board for the week (It has the days or the week and I put in the dates) that I use to map out the week and my food. I am a visual organizer. I need something on the fridge to tell me when to and what to cook. Otherwise, I forget and food goes bad. I got this at Office Max for $14 and it has really been helpful.
I do have a planner calendar. A little cheapie one. It is helpful, but it is not my primary.
Currently, my primary planner/organizer is gmail’s calendar feature. It can be printed, it has alarms, and I really rely on it.
Right now we are looking at getting a cell phone that comes with a calendar/planner function. I think that would probably be ideal for us as Gmail is not portable.
M
I live by my Outlook calendar, which I can sync to my Smartphone w/Windows Mobile. It’s great! Somewhat slow having to add appts to the cell phone, so sometimes I write them down to add later. Then I remember it’s best to take the time to just put them straight in the cell so they don’t get lost :).
One caveat, back up, back up, back up! I got sloppy about it, and had a major hard drive crash. Lost 8 months worth of data. Among other things, I missed an important deadline for paying a big bill! Computer backups work fine for me, but if you have a lot of major items, I would probably suggest a paper printout at least once a year.
Always best to stay organized, and a calendar is a great way. You can also use one of many online calendars like Google Calendars to track everything.
I had to move away from the written calendars when my children started having after school events. There simply was not enough room for everything. I keep one calendar on my mac, it is uploaded automatically to google, so my husband can get it at work, my daughter at school,or I can get it on any computer, it also syncs with my ipod touch, and everyone’s nano’s and ipods. My calendar emails me reminders and has little alarms that go off 15 minutes before we have to be anywhere, that has saved my butt a thousand times I tell you. SInce there is a notes section, I can put in directions and addresses to the events and the babysitter, though, sniff, my daughter now about to turn 14 is taking over much of that responsibility. I loved your post, I just can’t live without the technology and don’t have time to rewrite it all down in the little books. I can just print out one if we need it. Everyone in the family knows that if they get an invite, or know of something coming up to go right to the computer calendar and enter it. I agree that it is especially important to be organized. If you cannot afford a pda like the ipod touch, google offers a free calendar for users that you can input events into, and still share with your family. You can publish your calendar or not.
M-Sounds like you’ve got a plan that works for you. I’m considering moving over to google calendar myself, especially if I can sync it with a phone. . .
Kaye-oh, the backup point is a good one if you are going digital. Losing everything is bad. very bad.
Craig-True! My mind is like a sieve, if it isn’t written down it gets forgotten.
Micki-I think we are going to move that way too, especially as I am ramping up a consulting business and becoming busier. I have been thinking for a while that as the kids become older the central computerized calendar is a good idea for keeping track.