How my phone helped me become a calendar guy

As always, I thought it would be prudent to have a calendar ordered for me at work.
As always, I hardly use it. I did pay my auto insurance on time, though.

I'm pleased to report that one New Year's resolution seems to be coming to fruition: I'm becoming a calendar guy. Sort of. Since the time I decided to leave my job puncturing New York state with holes to get a master's degree, it just seemed like the organized thing to do.

Ever since I was little, using a calendar was one of those things that seemed to define being an adult for me. I recollect my mother whipping out a small notebook calendar from her purse whenever she scheduled appointments for me as a kid. In it were all sorts of other things she kept track of, too.

However, as I got older, I never felt a real need to use one. I've always been good at remembering when my appointments or other engagements are. Of course, I jotted down important upcoming due dates or examination dates in college and as a grad student. I also kept track of scheduled interviews and such as a reporter, using a giant desk-sized calendar. I'm sure writing these things down and seeing them helped keep dates straight in my mind, of course, but calendars were never something on which I depended.  

They're still not, but now that my cell phone syncs to my Google calendar, which I began using in earnest some time last year, it's easier to say to myself, "Oh, I should mark this on my calendar" and then actually do it. Unlike a physical calendar, I've almost always got my phone with me, so it's easy to input events; conversely, if I enter something onto the calendar via the Web, it syncs right to my phone.

This is much more efficient than my previous method of operation over the past year: "Oh, I should mark that on my calendar," I would think, followed by, "Well, which one?" Then I would make the decision to either jot it down in my notebook calendar, my Google calendar via the Web, or my BlackBerry's calendar. If I felt really ambitious, I would use all three. (I'm not sure why I never synced my old Storm to my G-calendar, now that I think about it. Hmm.)

I've written about my affinity for low tech, old-fashioned methods in the past, but in the case of calendars, modern tech has definitely helped me adopt the habit.