changethetape

Planning.  How do you take your ideas from your head to reality?  Did you buy a new calendar/planner for the new year?  How do you trick yours out?

I used to buy a pretty new planner and usually a journal, too, every year.

Every year, I was over them by February.

This isn’t to say I’m not much of a planner – I LIVE FOR PLANNING. It just took me a really long time to realize writing it all down in my pretty new planner didn’t work for me. Why? Because I’m a black and white thinker, a little bit of a perfectionist. So the first time I had to scratch something out on my pretty new planner, it was….ruined. It was no longer perfect and I had failed. Again.

That’s a lot of pressure to put on myself over something that is only meant to be a tool. Do I care what our hammer looks like? Nope, only that it works. So why then, do I care if my planner is less than pristine?

I don’t know…but I do.

Last year, I switched to keeping everything in my Google calendar. Everything. Because, I am after all, a planner.

I like it quite a bit. I still can’t get it perfect because I can never settle on what color an entry should be. I have some that are set: Jam is yellow, RPM is blue (fellow LM’ers…duh, right?) St. Rita Basketball is green. I typically try to make doctor appointments red, but that doesn’t always happen and social events? Forget it. It’s completely willy-nilly which drives me insane. Maybe I’ll sit down and color code everything today. #lifegoals

Bare with me as I explain a little more about an application that’s been around for 20 years, but I know that at the very least, Ginzo has no idea what I’m talking about. She’s still an avid AOL user. Then again…so is Kate. Who would ever have thought I’d be the most tech-savvy in the fam? For anyone who knows me, this is a face-palm moment for the Ouellettes.

But since Ginzo is also probably the only one reading this (and Joey – Joey always reads and usually “likes” my posts. Ok, maybe he only “likes” them. Reading all this is asking a lot.) I will continue to explain the nuances of Google Calendar 🙂

Another feature I like is that I can share it with Mark. I put both of our schedules and events on there and send “invites” so we both know I’ve added something. By inviting or sharing it, he gets the email reminders as well.

Mark did not initially share my enthusiasm for the shared, online calendar. Mostly because I am just as imperfect with this calendar as I am with a paper one and I inevitably enter something on the wrong date, send the invite, then realize the mistake, correct it and BAM – he gets another email invite.

He’s come around, though. Since the calendar is shared, anytime he opens his own Google calendar, anything I’ve added (and shared) shows up on his, too. So when he voiced his understandable frustrations at my multiple invite attempts, I just stopped sending him the invites. He could still go to the calendar and see everything so I figured I would stop annoying him with emails….

Only, he’d have to remember to go check the calendar and he had gotten used to getting the email updates so he started missing stuff – not knowing when I was teaching or when we had plans with friends. And in one of the proudest moments of our marriage, he asked me to go back to updating him.  In return, I have tried EXTRA hard to enter things correctly the FIRST time.

Let me be extremely clear about something. Google Calendar is nowhere near as satisfying as an actual, in-hand planner. The beauty of it is missed: the colors, the lines, the perfect pens.

But then again, those gorgeous arts and crafts projects disguised as a useful investments never sent me email reminders to check my tire pressure once a month, did they?