Even though digital calendars have long been available, I still rely on a physical calendar to jot down my appointments and important reminders for that day.
At the end of each year, I would be on the lookout for a physical table calendar and my usual inexpensive planner. The calendar that I choose would always need to have writing space. When I was still in corporate, my table calendar become a constant reference of meetings, important tasks and deadlines. After I become a full time caregiver, I still buy one each year to write down items like my mom’s medical appointments, payment due dates, etc.
Here are some of the reasons why I prefer a physical calendar than a digital one:
1. Reliable and there all the time, will not run out of battery
The reminder app on the phone would not work if the phone happened to run out of battery or is switched off. Whereas, a table calendar is there all the time for us to see it. Granted, we would not likely take our physical calendar with us wherever we go. What I do is I would refer to the calendar to see if there are any important upcoming deadlines or reminders which would enable me to set the tone for that day.
2. It does not get ‘accidentally’ dismissed or turned off, and out of sight is then out of mind
We can dismiss a phone reminder very easily, with just a flick of our finger. Sometimes, this is not even done intentionally….. we may be meaning to dismiss all those annoying notifications on our phone and with that, we accidentally dismiss our own reminders.
Actually in the beginning, I used to set my appointments on my Smartphone. But after a few times of ‘accidentally’ dismissing the reminder and having it disappeared, I ended up forgetting about the task. For example, unable to use my phone when I did not top up on time.
After that, I would commit to writing down important appointments and dates on my physical calendar. I still set these dates on my phone, and at times the reminders do help. However it is reassuring to know that the important things that I need to do that day are on my desktop calendar.
3. Reduce tendency to scroll on the phone
Many of us would be familiar with this…. we picked up our phone when we hear the reminder and then noticed that there are tonnes of other notifications from Facebook and Instagram on the happenings of our friends. So we click on the notification and the social media app opens up. The next thing we know, we have spent an hour scrolling through the updates…… and what’s more, it does not leave us feeling good.
We saw our friends having an outing which we had to miss, or that they did not invite us. We felt left out and feeling down as everyone else out there seemed to be having a better and more happening life than us.
Let’s say you are like me, you have deleted your Facebook app and other social media app so no notification. But hey, while you are on the phone, your fingers are tempted to just watch some YouTube video or scroll through Tik Tok. Sometimes, this action is almost automatic and happened without our conscious knowing since we are so used to reaching out for our phone.
4. Able to look back to see the year or past years at a glance
I would usually purge my past calendars once every few years (but now I would keep at least the stand to recycle it to place my own calendar). When I pick up a past year calendar and I flip through the months and looking at the appointments, I would be able to recall easily what happened in the past. The vacation, those special events, family and friends coming to visit, etc.
When we go through the digital calendar, the feeling is not the same. Because when the time is over, the event sort of ‘disappears’.
5. Exploring our creativity through decorating our calendars, or writing down something meaningful such as a particular quote.
In the past, I used to like buying cute calendars, like those from Kaison. We do not need to buy an expensive calendar but one in a design that we like …..if we are not into decorating it with stickers and stuff. I’ve noticed that some people actually would get a very inexpensive plain calendar, and decorate it to their heart’s content. Which is what I would be starting to do next year…..I have already printed my own calendar and put in some meaningful quotes to inspire me.
If we love our calendar, we would be consistent in writing down, referring and using our calendar.
6. Using calendar as an effective habit tracker
When I want to become more consistent at a particular habit, I sometimes would track it on my calendar. While it is common that habit trackers are found inside bullet journals and planner pages, we may fail to track consistently because it involves the additional step of fetching that planner, opening the page and tracking it down.
This is opposed to having a small fixed area, for example, the upper left side of the day’s box to write down if we have done the habit for that day. Let’s say we want to be more active and start with 5000 steps a day (which we track using a pedometer). On the days we achieve 5000 steps, we mark a certain area or place a sticker to indicate our achievement. Compare this to a habit tracker page nested deep inside our planner- we may forget to update which would eventually lead to us dropping off the habit all together.
Whereas if it is on a calendar, we see all the time….. and if we have been able to maintain the habit for some period of time, it feels good seeing that consistency and that would provide the motivation to continue it each day even on days that we did not feel like doing it.
The calendar can also be used to track other things…. like daily blood pressure readings or any metrics that we wish to track or build a habit on.
In conclusion, I find physical calendars to be more effective than digital calendars. I still set important recurring reminders (which had been set a few years ago) such as my credit card due date and other important dates in my phone app. But I would not be too worried if my phone’s turn off or if I had dismissed the appointment by mistake.
