19 December 2010

Calendars

I've finally succumbed to the Moleskine Empire: this is what I couldn't resist. So little, so cute, so many colors. I'm still trying to find the right calendar for me, and at the moment, I'm sure I have too many. I've been using a 2-page-per-week calendar that I made up myself; I still have my PDA; I have a blotter-size desk calendar showing a month at a time; I now have these little monthly notebooks for 2011; and I have a 2011 page-a-day calendar that lists times from 7:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., which I intend to use only for recording what I have actually done, rather than listing things to do. I've fallen out of the habit of tracking my time, lately (well, since at least the middle of the semester, to be honest), and I want to get back to it.

I think the organizational experts recommend that you have just one calendar so you don't get confused. But having two or three works for me, because the multiples help make time more concrete for me. Seeing the same dates and lists in different formats is helpful. I keep hoping that someday I will find some unusual layout or format that turns me into someone who truly believes in time as a concrete and manageable concept.

My sense of time really is much like my sense of basic mechanics: I know that I have to deal appropriately with time, just as I know that the table has to exert an upward force on the object that rests on it, to make the mathematics work out. But I've never really intuitively grasped that force, and I do not have an intuitive grasp of time. I trust the equations, and I play with my calendars, and things mostly get done in a more-or-less timely manner. And now I have lots of lovely new leaves to turn over on the first of January!

3 comments:

undine said...

Moleskine has a BOXED SET of calendars? I don't know whether to be glad that you have them or sorry that I now know this and will probably need them.

Anonymous said...

I have been using the 2010 boxed set, and as you say, the size! the colors!!!!

I too use several calendars -- one to record what I've actually done (I have all my calendars back to 1997 or so); one to plan the coming days (appts, to-do list), plus iCal on my phone.

I haven't yet decided what to use for planning. I'm overjoyed with my recent posterity calendar, this five-year calendar:
http://www.japanistic.com/desk-journals-calendars-diaries-c-5_24/5-year-perpetual-diary-p-287?zenid=86783fd5cb2b8f597715be64357af739

Anonymous said...

Very cute!

We just got their standard larger size calendar. It's a bit too big. They don't have exactly what we want in terms of insides and size. But we figured we'd go with them this year to try it out, since DH totally destroyed his other brand calendar this last year with regular wear.