Question of the Day:  

What type of calendar is best –

Electronic or Paper?

Electronic/Online Calendars are the most efficient type of calendars.

 

Specifically?

Google calendar is my favorite.  Google plays well with everyone. Making it able to be used on all brands and types of devices (Android or Apple etc.) and making it easier to incorporate with calendars used other places (i.e.Outlook at work can be read through Google).

A couple of important points:  

FIRST:  

Electronic can give you paper, Paper cannot give you electronic.  You can print out various views of your online calendar (Month, Week, Daily) and post them if you prefer to have paper at your fingertips.  

SECOND:

If you have a family or share your daily calendar with others, Electronic is the best, because it is easily shared and updated by multiple users.  You want to make sure that everyone can have the calendar in their possession when they are making plans and that everyone can add things to the calendar.   Electronic is updated real time and helps to ensure that everyone is on the same page.

THIRD:

If you have young children they will never know anything but electronic.   Schools are only increasing their use of online forums – document sharing, calendars, social media, testing, studying, textbooks etc.  Use these growing skills to teach your kids good time and task management by giving them an age appropriate awareness and responsibility for using the family calendar.   

FOURTH:

Schools, workplaces, sports teams, activities, clubs etc. are increasingly offering electronic schedules that can be automatically inserted into any of the poplar online calendar interfaces (Google, iCal, Outlook etc.).  As a result, entering the various schedules into ONE main electronic calendar is getting easier and easier.

FIFTH:

Electronic allows you to view many different calendars in one interface if desired and then hide certain calendars when they are not needed.

SIXTH:

Humans are visual and electronic calendars can be easily color coded, allowing us to quickly differentiate between different types of activities and appointments.  For example, one can have a different color for each member of a household and different colors for work, home, volunteer etc.

LAST:

The most important thing (far above whether you have a paper or electronic calendar) is to make sure you have only ONE daily life managing calendar.  Whatever version you ultimately choose it is imperative that you make sure you take the time to enter all of the different schedules/calendars you receive (school, church, volunteer, sports, activities etc.) into ONE main life managing calendar.  The more calendars you have to consult on a daily basis the more stress is added and the more likely you are to forget someone or something.