How Do You Keep A Calendar?
When Adam and I started working together full-time, syncing our calendars was one of the first things that we did. It was sort of a debacle. I honestly don’t even know how we did it but it went a little something like this:
- We had years of synced calendars through iCal
- We wanted to switch to Google Cal
- So we exported each individual calendar in iCal
- Then we imported each calendar into our new Google Cal (via Google Apps for Business)
- Once that was all set up and synced, we imported the entire Google Cal back INTO iCal so we can always view/add via our iPhones
Woof. I don’t think I could replicate it again if I wanted to. The good news: it all works. We have 5 “users” established and color coded:
- Allie – Business
- Allie – Personal
- Adam – Business
- Adam – Personal
- The Lehmans
How do YOU do your calendar? Paper and pen? iCal? Outlook? Google? A combination of them all? Do you share with a significant other?
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Comments (23)
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Haha yes it TOTALLY keeps the more organized person sane. I know for a fact that our marriage would be more stressful if we never knew why we were always gone.
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I was always a paper + pen kind of girl, but when my planner wasn’t always around it wasn’t working too well. I now use Google Calendar on my laptop & Sunrise on my iPhone– I love it! I really like the idea of a shared calendar :)
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I’ll have to check out Sunrise. I’ll probably stick to our plan but I always like to give recommendations to others! PS- lovin’ your blog!
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I LOVED keeping my calendar in a hand-written planner throughout high school and college – it was so easy to see my week or month all at once and I felt so organized. But I had to make the switch to digital once I got a job and all of my work calendars were on Google. The transition was oddly hard and I felt quite disorganized for a while, but now I love having access to multiple calendars wherever I go!
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The transition for me was also hard (paper to digital) but now I get frustrated with a paper planner. So funny how habits change!!
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I am normally a pen and paper girl too, but I go back and forth. I keep a small planner in my purse/camera bag, and use iCal on my iPhone which then syncs with my iPad and computer. The hard part is remembering to put the things from the planner into iCal. I drive myself crazy with that forgetfulness.
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Yeah when I tried to juggle both, I always forgot to put something online that was already on my paper planner. I do love just adding a future meeting from my iPhone while still sitting with someone. It’s so convenient!
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My calendar is mine and all mine, so no sharing here. I use a yearly, monthly, weekly planner from staples and my favorite pen. It’s small and I take it everywhere!
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Ah I remember having a calendar all to myself. It was actually pretty crazy when we synced ours together. For awhile, Adam would just share a single calendar with me so I knew when he was busy!
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That sounds so crazy! Right now I keep up with both mine and my boyfriend’s calendar. Since I’m still a student I also have to keep up with my class schedule and such. I find the best way for me is to write it down, so I have a Day Designer where I record all important dates.
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Oh yes class schedule would need to be consistent! Do you just jot down what your boyfriend is up to in your paper calendar too?
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Jem
I’m so glad to hear others share calendars. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told people that Peter and I share calendars and they get all weird about it. They can’t figure out of I’m distrusting or if he’s possessive. They don’t buy it that it’s just easier to look to just see that we are both free at a glance and make plans from there instead of endlessly going back and forth with potential dates. I guess were are just highly evolved couples.
We use Google calendar now and my world will come undone if it ever goes the way of Google reader. Prior to sharing calendars, I would inevitably schedule time with a friend on the one night Peter was free to see me for the upcoming week. We share our general calendars and and Lohmann-Robbs events calendar for family birthdays and anniversaries. Peter as made a separate work calendar to share with his business partner. I can hide that one when I don’t want my calendar cluttered, but I can still check if he is free to meet for lunch.
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Oh wow, really? That’s so funny that people would assume there is a lack of trust or too much possessiveness. I honestly makes our relationship SO much better. We did this even before we worked together full-time.
I agree – if Gmail or Google Cal ever cease to exist, my life will be over. I just love being able to schedule a double date (like with you guys) or a client meeting and knowing Adam doesn’t have anything. Obviously I’ll run things by him but for work I usually just book an hour slot like you would at…work!
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Right now I’m trying out Google calendar, but I rarely stick to anything to actually that I actually include in there, ha! I also still use pen and paper- feels good to cross tasks out!
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I DO still love crossing things out. Crazily this past month has been huge for me and I really feel like I’m totally switched to digital. i still carry a notebook with me for client meetings but I write detailed notes from meetings in Evernote, create tasks to assign, add tasks to Wedoist (online) and attach the Evernote link as a doc. All calendars are online too. Wow. It feels weird!
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We keep all our work commitments on our work Outlook calendars and then send meeting invites back and forth to those calendars for everything personal we have to do. If we ever leave our jobs, well, that could be a problem, but for now, keeping one calendar for everything is awesome!
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Yes that’s how we did it before we synced. We would either share a sub calendar or invite each other!!
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I was a paper day planner hold out for a LONG TIME. Especially when I was working, in graduate school AND planning a wedding? My day planner was my life. After the wedding though, I realized it was hard to keep up with our joint schedules with just a paper day planner. We now both use Google Calendar and it’s just so much better. We both have personal calendars that we can each see and then we have a calendar just for our bills. It’s so easy to manage our busy schedules and keep each other in the loop.
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Yeah that’s exactly how I felt! And how we made it work. I am serious when I say it helps our marriage haha.
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I love Google calendar, and would probably cry if it went away. And yet, I still love my paper planner – for me they serve two different functions.
Google calendar works as a bigger-picture sort of calendar for us – just like you’ve got 5 users established, we’ve got my personal one, a family one, and my husband’s personal one. It works so well for us both to know what we’ve got going on when. My kids are too young to worry about splitting their events off into their own calendar, but I can see that happening someday. It works to easily remind my husband of when I need him to watch our kids because I’ve got a doctor’s appointment, and it works to remind me when he’s unavailable so don’t make any plans that require his attendance or availability.
I love my paper planner for to-do lists and brainstorming. I like being able to carry it with me and not worry about trying to type something into my phone. So far the redundancy of writing appointments in both the planner and the electronic calendar hasn’t been an issue, but I also don’t have that many things that require precise scheduling.
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My method is similar! While mine isn’t so much of a calendar – I keep lists and meeting notes in one notebook. There are times where Adam and I see the same tasks in Wedoist – I also have my own lists floating around. Especially since starting a few site projects.
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candace m.
Drew and I do the same thing, minus the iCal part…we have to. Before we started doing that, Drew wouldn’t even realize I’d be gone for the weekend until Friday sometimes!
Though I’m super busy, I’m pretty go with the flow – but this has done a lot for Drew’s sanity. lol.