Technology, Fried or Foe.
So I have aquired two pieces of technology in the last little while, one intended to help you organize, the other not as much - however their usefullness in organization seems to have been reversed.

A few years ago, a friend of mine who is HIGHLY visual/spatial, and used to be extremely disorganized, was over and had to leave at a certain time. To remind herself, she set a quick alarm on her digital watch, and then forgot about the deadline. Being rather adhd, she was pleasantly surprised when the watch went off a couple hours later, reminder her it was time to go.

A few months later, I found myself missing all sorts of appointments at work, and one day broke down and picked up a $12 digital watch.

It has been my saviour. Now, in the morning I have forced myself into the habit of looking at my paper calendar (month at a glance, of course - more on that in a future post), and then setting my watch alarm for the first appt of the day.

Voila, no missed appointments.

On the other hand, my Palm Pilot is totally useless for this kind of thing. I find that I tend to cram it full of every appointment and task I can think of, and set the appropriate alarms. Then of course it chirps like a caffeinated cricket all day, and I end up tuning it out. Of course I could always just set the alarms one after the other, but that's kind of like only scheduling things in your paper planner one at a time. It doesn't work that way.

The benefit of a watch, is that I need to conciously set each successive alarm. I am then reminded of what's coming up, and able to better mentally prepare for it. With a Palm Pilot, the whole reminder function is reduced to automatic. Fine for some, but if the tasks and appointments require any kind of forethought, then you're pretty much done.

I guess this comes down to my right brained need to see the big picture, and then only break down the details so far. Dissecting your day into 15 minute increments on your Palm Pilot smacks of totaly overanalysis to me. Having a month at a glance calendar with big blank boxes I can write anything I want to in, and then a one at a time audio reminder seems to work better.

Comments?