Help me, I'm a calendar luddite.

So this is kind of a plea for help.  

It isn't that I'm not reasonably geeky.  Really, I am.  Very comfortable in the Internet, cloud computing age.

But.  This is the calendar app that I use:

(I thought I'd make sure to include in the photo the background skin I selected, complete with pirate ship and wildebeest.)

I have tried in the past to transition to a shareable online calendar and I have always failed.  Something about the paper-and-pen -- about the memory cues that are triggered by the color ink I used or by the scrawly arrows that mark off a whole week -- the way the month looks hanging up on the wall -- the fact that it's always visible in the same spot in my house -- something in there comforts me and makes me feel as if I am On Top of Things. I do not get that feeling from electronic calendars.  And I thrive on that feeling.

But it is starting to get annoying (not to ME -- to those pesky OTHER people) that I am always saying "I can't confirm that right now, I have to go home and check my calendar" or "ha ha, sure I'd love to share my calendar with you, let me find a photocopier and a stamp."

I think I might have to go cold turkey in 2014.

Does anyone know of a twelve-step program for making the transition?  And what's a good app to use?  How do I do this painlessly?

If this helps at all:  

• of the two people whose calendars I am most in need of being in touch with or sharing, one uses Outlook and one uses Google Calendar.  
• Our family mostly uses Macs and iOS devices, but we do use Windows PCs on occasion.

Thoughts?

 

Comments

[Bearing]

Test

[Rebekka]

As far as I'm concerned, this is one area where paper and ink (or pencil) is as good as it gets. I've tried google and iCal and various apps and always go back to a family calendar with different columns. I sync it by hand with an A6 moleskine (week on one page, lined on the facing page) which I usually have in my purse. Nothing I've found beats the overview you get from looking at a paper calendar, and I find that the act of writing it in by hand helps me remember things. I do paper lists too (hence the lined page in my little calendar).

So I say embrace it.

[bearing]

I'm thinking about keeping the paper calendar, but printing a new one out every now and then and hanging the printout on the wall.

What I would really like is a step by step guide for getting used to doing it the new way.

Love moleskines. It's stupid but I like them so much. I swear, the main reason I became a homeschooler was my addiction to stationery and office supplies.

[Kate]

I am hooked on my Google calendar app. I really do need something that syncs, that I can check on my laptop or phone. I've used daybooks for years and that works ok - except when it's not in my purse because I left it on my desk. Or I've left my purse (and daybook) behind.

BUT...I just ordered a big wall calendar. It's just too darn aggravating to have to click through my schedule week by week to see what is going on. On the app, I can't really get a good overview of more than a day at a time - on the laptop, I can look at two weeks at a time, but the month view minimizes everything down and just shows a bolded date on days when something is scheduled....but EVERY day has something scheduled, because I'm using Google calendar for hourly scheduling. So the month view is useless to me.

My new plan is to keep using Google calendar for it's portability and share-ability, but to sit down and manually 'sync' to my wall calendar. I just need to SEE it all when doing long range planning.

[Tabitha]

I have a dumbphone. My 2yo put my tablet in the dog water. So, I'm sticking with the good ole wall calendar. It's sometimes inconvenient, but I don't know of a better way at this point without investing in more technology.

[Barbara C.]

I am a fan of the traditional wall calendar as well. I tried using the calendar on my tablet for awhile, but I still had to copy everything over to the wall calendar for everyone else to know. I also sometimes had to wait for my tablet to load up while the receptionist sat there waiting.

I just find it easier to say that I'll call back when I get home. Although, sometimes I'll just grab the calendar and make a copy of the current/next month on my printer to take with me. Then I copy any appointments back on to the master calendar.

[Christy P.]

Outlook will sync with google. Google will sync with ical.

Google fan here.

But, in our house, nothing is real until it is on the paper calendar.

[Bearing]

I have been trying to play with iCal and get it to sync with outlook, and it is only sort of working. Since I can access the husband's outlook calendar from home if I ever need to see more details,, all I really need is for him to "invite" me to his business trips so I know where he is going to be when.

I think I will have to try Google next.

Paper calendars are only subjectively real in our house, which is to say that they represent reality to some of us but not all of us. Not naming any names.

[bearing]

It seems that Google Calendar no longer will sync with Outlook... existing users are grandfathered in, but you cannot download the syncing software anymore. Bummer. Maybe some third-party software will do it, I don't know....

[Christy P.]

I think outlook still syncs to ical and ical to google, so it may need to be transitive

[Bearing]

The temporary fix we seemed to have settled on is to use a google calendar, because Mark's iPhone will sync to both his work Outlook calendar and to the google one, and then he is required to "invite" the google calendar to all his business trips (the only class of event on his work calendar that I actually want to see.)

I still hate not having a paper calendar, but I am going to make a good faith effort to get over it. We both are uneasy about having two canonical calendars, so one approach has to win.