Ugly Reminder
I was reminded of the drawbacks of calendars recently, when I flipped over my monthly birthday calendar to August, and realized that I hadn't touched it since June.
This is the fabulous calendar that a Dutch friend gave us, that has a number for each day of each month, but not a day of the week. You put the name of the person by the day of their birthday, and just flip it over year after year.
One problem, we had not taken her most salient piece of advice, and put it in the bathroom, across from the toilet, where we would always see it.
So, when I flipped through past July, I noticed I had missed my little sister's birthday.
Oops.
Years ago I migrated from a day at a glance calendar, because I found I wasn't very good at keeping running to do lists, and I would flip the page over one morning (usually about 10:00 or so, when I got around to it), and find an important conference call with the VP...for 9:15.
So I went to week at a glance, and found that the problem repeated itself like clockwork every Monday morning.
So now I use a monthly calendar, a nice portable sized one I can carry with me, that I can doodle on, and write phone numbers and other things on when I don't have my Moleskine immediately handy.
All works great, and the opportunities for missed VP conference calls are reduced to 12 per year.
All this is a way of saying that if organization is NOT your forte, a Month at a Glance calendar is the way to go - in fact the bigger the better. When I didn't need to be mobile, I used to use the big desk blotters, and then at the end of the month, tear off the page and put it in a folder, because I KNEW I was going to need it later.
Of course, it's even that much more usefull if you put it in the bathroom.