We’ve all experienced that sinking feeling sometime or another: when you realise the big interview you thought was tomorrow is actually today. Or when you have to cancel going out with your best friend because you forgot you had to be somewhere else. Or when you get a call from someone important asking why you didn’t show up for your meeting with them.

The fact of modern life is this: it’s busy. There’s a lot to keep track of:  meetings, birthdays, events and, of course, your social life, to name but a few. To try to remember all of this is a waste of mental energy – energy that you could have put to better use.

Using a paper planner is a step forward, in the sense that you don’t have to remember everything. But really, keeping track of your life can be better, easier and more fun. And that’s precisely where a digital calendar comes into the picture.

A digital calendar:

1. Let’s you easily create events (including repeating ones) and move them around – much better than having to cross out or erase in a paper planner;
2. Can present your schedule to you in different formats, e.g. as a list of upcoming events, a day view, week view, month view, etc. – useful in different situations;
3. Let’s you set reminders for important events;
4. Let’s you store additional information with an event, e.g. where it takes place, as well as a description; and
5. Let’s you search your events – extremely handy in the rare cases when you need it.

As an added extra, a digital calendar doubles as a diary of sorts: you’ll easily be able to navigate back in time to see what you did at a specific point in the past.

There are a number of digital calendar tools available today, some as software that you install on your computer (e.g. Microsoft Outlook) and some as “cloud” calendars (i.e. where your data is securely stored online). While you can experiment with what works for you, Google Calendar – a free, cloud-based calendar – is bound to be a good choice, because it’s simple to use and easily synced with multiple devices (e.g. your phone, tablet and computer).

Google Calendar (Free)

Once you’ve signed up, you’ll get a blank calendar, ready for you to start adding events. You’ll be able to access your calendar from any computer with an internet connection by entering the above address in your web browser. If you have a smartphone or tablet, you can easily set it up to synchronise events with your Google Calendar, so you will have your schedule with you (and can add new events) wherever you go. Reading the welcoming page will get you up and running with all this and more in no time.

When it comes to entering events, it’s all or nothing.

To get the most out of your digital calendar you’ll need to commit to adding everything you want to keep track of. No more “I don’t need to add that meeting; I’m sure I’ll remember it”. If you can’t look at your calendar and trust that it’s really giving you a complete picture of your schedule, it’s really of no use.

What this means in practical terms:

1. Whenever someone wants to schedule something with you, take a look at your calendar first. The initial comments from your friends will stop as soon as they see how much easier it makes your life.
2. Once you have a date or time for an activity, create a new event immediately, so as to prevent forgetting to add it later. For example, the moment you hear about a test in class, you and your friend decide on a coffee date or you see a notice of your favourite band performing in Aandklas or Bohemia, quickly jot it down in your calendar.

The easiest way to accomplish both of the above is to have your calendar set up on your phone or tablet (see the previous section). While the above may sound like a cumbersome habit, you’ll get used to it very quickly. And from what you’re going to gain from it, it’s totally worth it.

By simply taking a look at your calendar before scheduling events and entering new ones the moment you hear about them, you’ll already be able to get a better grip on the practicalities of your daily life. To get even more from your calendar, use these pointers:

• Create sub-calendars for different facets of your life (e.g. “Tests and exams”, “Classes and tuts”, “Projects” and “Personal and social”);
• Add repeating events for your classes;
• Use event descriptions to add handy information (e.g. the scope of a test or the topic of a meeting);
• Add “TBC” (To be confirmed) or “TBD” (To be decided) after event titles to keep track of events of which the time is tentative (e.g. “John’s braai TBC”), or of events that you haven’t decided whether or not you want to go. This prevents you from accidentally scheduling events in those time slots because you didn’t see that there already was a chance of something else going on.
• Create a daily to-do list on your calendar by adding all-day events with “[ ]” in front of the title (e.g. “[ ] Buy groceries”). Once you’ve completed the task, ‘tick’ the box by changing the text to “[X]” (e.g. “[X] Buy groceries”). It’s a simple trick, but very powerful.

While using a digital calendar will certainly add value to your life, there’s perhaps one last, more general principle you need to bear in mind: don’t over-organise. Leave room for the unexpected, spontaneous and serendipitous; don’t be a calendar fundamentalist (“if it’s not on my calendar, it’s not happening”). At the same time, don’t lose your reins on life and allow it to run away with you. After all, a calendar is there to help simplify your life. And, if you use it well, it certainly will.

[ARTICLE BY JOHANNES JONKER]

This entry was posted on Friday, July 25th, 2014 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Communication. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.