I use a small Filofax, and I have to order the new year refill pages by August. I know a woman with 4 kids who all have multiple activities. She keeps a large book like yours, and color codes entries. One day she lost it, and a few days later she got it in the mail with a note: "Here's your book, Dinosaur". I've called it a dinosaur book ever since.

Maybe if the dinosaurs actually had larger planners they woulda planned better and not got themselves extinct :)

There is NO substitute, in my opinion, for using a digital calendar. Pick your preference - whether through Gmail/Google, or Yahoo, or Apple, or whatever. You have it with you wherever you go, making entries on any device (PC, smartphone, tablet) replicates to all in seconds. It can't be lost or misplaced, it can't be in the wrong place when you need to consult your schedule or add/subtract an entry. Because you can access it from anywhere, including from other people's devices if necessary.

" I know a woman with 4 kids who all have multiple activities. She keeps a large book "

Nah, this is a yesterday solution to a need of today. Simply create a family schedule with every person's schedule built in. Again, same choice of services - Google Calendar, Yahoo Calendar, Apple Calendar, or what have you. Every family member can access it from anywhere using the same devices as with their personal schedules. With younger kids who can read, get a display that shows everyone's schedule and leave it where it's visible to all, like in the kitchen. Just like with a personal calendar, anyone can make an addition or change from any device and the result is updated in seconds on the display.

Here's just one example of such a device to use. There are many to choose from:

Amazon.com : 10.1 inch Wall Planner Digital Calendar & Chore Chart,Smart Touchscreen Interactive Display for Family Schedules,Hearth Display Digital Calendar, Digital Photo Frame Share Moments from Anywhere : Electronics

For the busy or working parent - "Hmm, when is Pat's soccer game this weekend, where is it?" Just look at the calendar on your phone or PC. "Is there anything I need to prepare for in advance, for the kids next week? Oh, Kelly has a field trip on Tuesday, need to pack a lunch and give some spending money".

Et cetera

I will keep my dinosaur book thank you very much. I buy an 8.5x11 two year spiralbound planner. DH and I share it, modify it, refer to it, keep reminders in it and don't need to involve our electronic devices. We always know where it is, never wonder if it's charged and don't worry about losing it because it lives on a shelf in our den. He is perpetually absent-minded and I can't imagine coordinating our lives digitally.

If you're having lunch with a friend who wants to know if you can come for dinner Friday after next, what is your response?

Or, you're at a service provider, scheduling the next appointment, and they want to know if a month from Thursday at 10 am is open, what's your response?

The examples are numerous.

Make yourself happy but saying "this works for us", when talking about a limited function tool instead of something more flexible and useful that's in broader use, isn't going to convince anyone that "your way" is more useful and something they should consider switching to.

This might make your head explode, but I keep a pocktsized dayplanner in my purse.

So you write everything out twice? How about your husband, what does he carry around? A phone to call you to check the calendar?

Oh and PS - if you don't have room in your house for one of the 10 inch vertical calendar displays I linked to above, Google Calendar, and I'm sure others, allows you to print out an 8.5 x 11 Month at a glace page, or a Week at a Glance page, that you can leave out for viewing.

Elmer, we live remotely and at sea level and honestly don't have reliable cellphone service, especially during tourist season. I only had one bar on my iPhone when I was waiting to see my doctor last week and wasn't able to make a call to DH. We still keep our neolithic landline. So we work around it. If we lived closer to a cell tower, things would be different. It's actually difficult to live in a digital world where everyone assumes you have access.

Seagrass, every few months I go out for lunch with three friends. We’ve done it for years. At the end of lunch, we make a date for the next time.

Two of them and I will enter the planned date into our phones. The fourth lady, pulls out her pocket sized dayplanner, and writes the date down. She is usually finished penciling in the date before we’re done with our phones. It works for her! What she does at home with family calendars is her business. 🤷‍♀️

It works for her.

Seagrass, I understand what you're saying but think more broadly. If you connect your phone once to your home Wifi and then leave it on, and then switch on Wifi calling on your smart phone, you'll have the equivalent of full bars of service at home and won't be replying on cell tower connections for phone or data connectivity at all. At least when at home.

rox, in a group where everyone uses their digital calendars, one person makes the entry and then invites the rest of the group. If it's a recurring group, all that's necessary is for the person who originated the group entry to change the date on the existing lunch appointment you're attending, and then new invitations are automatically sent to everyone then and there with details for the next time.

It can also be easily set up the first time that any recipient can make a change. Done in one step, just change the date.

Elmer, that is not how our group does it.

How we do it works for us.

We’re comfortable with the way we do it. I enter the date on my phone, my husband gets the date when I enter it. What the other ladies do is their business.

Casual lunch, enjoyable time. No problems.

I grudgingly use the calendar on my phone, but I think written diaries are better if you have the way to carry one with ease. People remember more (and better) by writing things down than by typing them.......I can easily access my calendar now (on my phone) and see things scheduled, but I don't remember them like I do when I right them down. Frankly, writing them down helps me remember, even if I don't look back at what I've written.

But I gave in to the digital revolution. I don't regret using my iPhone for a wealth of things, but I believe writing things down is better than making a digital reminder, whether a calendar or a shopping list.

TV, I use my phone for a lot of things, but I love handwriting out shopping lists.

I feel that I don’t handwrite enough. I’m a beautiful writer 😊 and I love the feel of a really good pen in my hands. I love forming the letters. I love looking at the script. It’s one of my tiny pleasures that gives me a lot of satisfaction.

Like seagrass, I carry a pocket calendar. I find it's much faster to write than to enter something on my phone. At home I have a wall calendar, and my husband has a desk calendar. We've never missed an appointment. ;-)

I'm otherwise not a Luddite and am very comfortable with technology, but I've just never found a calendar on my phone to be more convenient. Now if I still had children at home with school, activities, etc. or had to coordinate with lots of people then I'd no doubt use my phone, but as it is I don't see the need. I'm not that busy!

I use the calendar provided on my Apple devices. As Elmer said, they automatically sych so I always have updated info no matter which device I look at.

What I don’t think Elmer mentioned (but he may have and I missed it because I was skimming) is that you can create additional calendars, each color-coded with colors of your choosing, and you can choose which calendar(s), if any, that you want to share with others. Hubs and I have one that we share, so we know when scheduling anything whether or not there will be a conflict. When viewing your calendar(s) you can choose which calendar’s entries are shown. For example, you could create an additional calendar named ”Weight” and choose a color for it. On the days you weigh yourself, you enter the info on a new entry and select the Weight calendar. Your weight will show up with your other calendar entries, but if you want to quickly see how your weight loss journey is going all you have to do is unselect the other calendars and then the only info you see is your various weights on the applicable dates.

I agree - do what works for you in your own life. I no longer use a planner, but I do keep lots of stickies and notepads at my desks at home & work to jot things down, and I use my phone calendar for meetings, appointments, all kinds of stuff. I set notifications to remind me as far ahead as I need to - often multiple times, in case I get distracted. That works well for me.

And it's been shown that the act of writing something anchors it better than typing it does.

“is that you can create additional calendars, each color-coded with colors of your choosing, and you can choose which calendar(s), if any, that you want to share with others”

Yes! That’s what my husband and I do.

I used to have the below kind. Along with my entire desk calendar, which covered the entire desk. I'm electronic now. Because I can set multiple reminders. Reminding myself a week before, 2 days before, day before, and day of, for instance. I used to love going through it at the end of the year. Reminding myself of all the things I accomplished or had been through.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/AAGE71750-Desk-Calendar-Refill/17741820765?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=102727203&selectedOfferId=C53D207F61413E51853FACF5F8A1D278&conditionGroupCode=1&adid=22222222228C53D207F61413E51853FACF5F8A1D278_14069003552_202077872&wl0&wl1=g&wl2=m&wl3=42423897272&wl4=pla-2449037643288&wl5=9013149&wl6&wl7&wl8&wl9=pla&wl10=5550184324&wl11=online&wl12=C53D207F61413E51853FACF5F8A1D278&veh=sem

P.S. I'm so visual and I do write things down, that I have a Kanban board in my offices.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban_board

Lindsey, I intentionally left out details. With a closed minded response of "we do it how we do it because that's how we do it", it didn't matter. I don't suspect that response came from someone with experience of sending and receiving invites to multi-person events. I've never encountered anyone who'd used it that didn't like it a lot. Maybe this is the first.

I remember you prefer Apple capabilities and that's fine. Many, many people agree with you. I think Google's linked personal management offerings and especially Google Maps are much better. Google's Waze appeals to a lot of people too. All of the Google stuff is available for and works great on iPhones. We all like what we like, and from one kind to another, they're really more the same than different. They pay attention to one another and each will add features the other may have that they themself don't.

Google calendar, which is the one I use, works exactly the same way as you describe. It's easy to decide which calendar(s) to include or, by choice, not include.

The calendar display device I linked to is a perfect way for anything from a family with busy children to keep things straight, to a smaller grouping like a couple where one may have an aversion to doing things a more convenient and flexible way.

" I love forming the letters. I love looking at the script. It’s one of my tiny pleasures that gives me a lot of satisfaction. "

I love this! I hope we all have little things that bring us a lot of personal satisfaction.

No, Elmer, I wouldn’t say that I ”prefer Apple capabilities.” I actually intensely dislike Apple. My most favorite cell phone was my BlackBerry Bold 8700. I use an Apple iPhone 15 now, but I’m not thrilled with it. My preferred computer is a desktop running on the Windows OS. Hubs doesn’t want a cell phone to do anything but make & receive phone calls. He does not get e-mail on his Apple 16. He uses a Mac laptop but only because when he was still working (he retired in 2015) several of his coworkers convinced him to switch from Windows to Macs. And we don’t have kids or anyone else who’s schedule we need to track.

I am using my Blue Sky planner right now. I much prefer paper. It does not stop when the power or internet go out and I can scribble notes and thoughts without paging back and forth. Since I keep the planners, I can look back at previous years. They work like a journal.

I do remember much better writing than computers. The only windows I liked was 95 media center edition.

I use a 17 x 11 desk calendar and have for so long. It fits nicely tucked under the keyboard on my desk. When I worked, I used electronic calendars because the whole office needed to sync activities. After DH died, and I retired, my only concern is my own activities.

Once in a blue moon ... and by that I mean once every couple of years ... do I have to change an appointment because of double booking. Like TV mentioned, above, by writing something down I remember it better. Sometimes it's a buffer if I might not want to participate in an offered activity ... gee, let me check my calendar when I get home and I'll let you know. I don't have a bazillion doctor appointments that could be confusing to keep track of. If I did, I'd carry the pocket calendar.

I believe it's kind of like finding a new-to-me location without using Google maps or Garmin. In the old days I'd figure out how to get there myself. Now that I rely on electronic maps, my ability to "figure it out myself" is severely diminished. If I relied on electronic calendars, I feel I would lose the ability to remember my own upcoming (or previous) activities.

I do not want to be "instantly available" to the world. My concerns are family and friends and there aren't "that" many of either that I can't remember or keep track of things we're doing together. I do not carry my phone from room to room in my house, altho I don't leave home without it. I appreciate advances in technology, but don't necessarily want to USE every one of those advances. I like that my hairdresser sends my next appointment via text and it adds to the electronic calendar. But when I get home, I write it on the desk calendar. I look at the entire month every couple of days and have never (so far!) forgotten an activity or function and booked something else at the same time.

And yes, I save those pages and every once in awhile pull them out to remember a particular time of my life. Looking at an electronic calendar doesn't bring me the same memories.

Sorry Lindsey, wrong recollection on my part. I must have attributed comments of others some time ago incorrectly to you.

" It does not stop when the power or internet go out and I can scribble notes and thoughts without paging back and forth. Since I keep the planners, I can look back at previous years....... "

How are you able to compare what you do and how you do it, to something you've never tried before?

" If I relied on electronic calendars, I feel I would lose the ability to remember my own upcoming (or previous) activities. "

I think your concern is unnecessary. Does it matter if you note something down on yellow paper instead of white paper.

An electronic calendar is a different way of noting things down. One that's more flexible, portable, and impossible to lose. Functionally, it's the same but with more features and capabilities.

Do as you prefer, but as with my above comment, I wonder how you can be so certain what your reaction would be to an experience you haven't had.

“It has been a valuable tool to help me organize, definitely one of those worthwhile annual purchases.”

Lucille, I’m glad you’re happy with your purchase.

This thread got me thinking about a song ”Human” by The Killers and my interpretation of the lyrics. The song asks ”Are we human or are we dancer”. I think we are all a bit of both. Human is having quirks and pleasures and preferences that gives us the free choice to be people. Dancer is a set of choreographed actions that you must conform to.

I think that just because you have a device that can do a variety of things, doesn’t mean that you have to use them. Pick and choose what you want. Or use them all if you want.

”Pay my respects to grace and virtue

Send my condolences to good

Give my regards to soul and romance

They always did the best they could”

Sometimes, I miss handwritten notes. I miss a real newspaper. I miss Moleskine planners. I miss doing long division on a scrap of paper, or figuring out a percentage. (I do those things sometimes because it just feels so satisfying. 🤠)

And, bravo to those (my dear son-in-law) who whips out his phone and gets things done lickety-split.

Lucille, enjoy your planner.

I have an earworm now!!!!

I did my best to notice
When the call came down the line
Up to the platform of surrender
I was brought, but I was kind
And sometimes I get nervous
When I see an open door
Close your eyes
Clear your heart
Cut the cord

Are we human
Or are we dancer?
My sign is vital
My hands are cold
And I'm on my knees
Looking for the answer
Are we human
Or are we dancer?

Pay my respects to grace and virtue
Send my condolences to good
Give my regards to soul and romance
They always did the best they could
And so long to devotion
You taught me everything I know
Wave goodbye
Wish me well
You've gotta let me go

Are we human
Or are we dancer?
My sign is vital
My hands are cold
And I'm on my knees
Looking for the answer
Are we human
Or are we dancer?

Will your system be alright
When you dream of home tonight?
There is no message we're receiving
Let me know, is your heart still beating?

Are we human
Or are we dancer?
My sign is vital
My hands are cold
And I'm on my knees
Looking for the answer

You've gotta let me know

Are we human
Or are we dancer?
My sign is vital
My hands are cold
And I'm on my knees
Looking for the answer
Are we human
Or are we dancer?

Lucille, enjoy your planner.

Thank you :) I will. I am, by nature, a happy dinosaur

We do not have cell service where we live. I do not even have a cell phone. We still use a land line. I know to some of you, I sound like I live in the Dark Ages.

I still use a desk calender for any scheduled appointents. DH uses yahoo calender but also writes it down. I am happy without a cell phone.

caflower, it doesn't matter if you're happy with what you have, but for anyone else with poor reception at home, cell phones can be set to connect to a home Wifi signal. And when so connected, they function just as if there were a commercial cell tower on your fireplace chimney.

I'm an Apple person, 100% - iPhone, iPad, Mac computer.

My husband and I use a shared Google calendar.

I also have a planner, for work - and my work is PC-based. The Outlook calendar has definite shortcomings, and I always invite our "shared" calendar to any events necessary for one or both of us to attend, from my work email.

My planner is for notes and for things I can't forget to do. Writing them down makes my brain retain them.

Just because there's "no excuse" for not using a digital calendar doesn't mean it works for everyone. Usually, I agree with most things you say, but your ham-handed approach to this whole conversation is kinda rude.

" How do you know what I have tried! "

Based on comments in the Turkey Tales and at other times, I think I've learned to not follow along with what you say.

Elmer - I guess I didn't make myself clear. I don't want a cell phone. I have a tablet and a computer and have access to everything I want or need. I am happy.