Electronic or Paper? Sync or Script

In our syncing world of electronic everything, I still use a paper calendar. 

There is no compelling reason behind the choice.  I've had an iPod for several years, a smartphone for one year and received a Kindle yesterday as a gift.  None of these devices came into my life out of necessity. They entered as either a birthday or Christmas present and, except for the new Kindle, as the song says, "they're second nature to me now."

My calendar, however, continues to be a pen and paper thing.

In her Sunday Times article "A Paper Calendar? It's 2011," Pamela Paul writes about leaving her paper personal organizer at work over a weekend, prompting some soul searching about life's anchors.  After a weekend of unsettling schedule ignorance, Sunday evening arrived with the the author also deprived of a look into her upcoming week. She offered this reflection: "I had nothing to worry about except what I didn't know I should be worrying about." http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/fashion/calendar-wars-pit-electronics-against-paper.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=A%20paper%20calendar?%20it%22s%202011%22&st=cse

Not surprisingly Ms. Paul's reporting noted that colleagues who sync their personal and work calendars electronically, referenced paper calendar users as opting for a "horse and buggy" and "dinosaur" choice.  Their synchronized consolidation has merit if blending is what you seek. 

Christena Nippert-Eng, a sociologist at the Illinois Institute of Technology, studied 
work/life balance and states in the Times article, "People who merged their home and work keep all their keys on one chain and all their home and work commitments on one calendar."  She went further to investigate any affect this might have on privacy and concluded that while "it is a good way to break down the boundaries between different parts of your life," it equally challenged how to keep different slices of our lives apart.

I would love to offer well thought out reasons for keeping a paper calendar - some higher level of understanding and awareness that helps me maintain an individualized stance in the age of clouds, tablets, and all consuming friending. Alas, my only retort is, well, I like my paper calendar.  It has been my companion for almost 20 years.  Each December I purchase the new year of pages (yikes! not a green choice) and happily switch them three months at a time.  I find particular pleasure in viewing the month at a glance - life in one look. Every date also has some pithy quote (I read them all). A favorite, coincidentally from Ben Franklin upon whom the Franklin Covey name is built, resonates with the writer inside me struggling to gain some footing:

"If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead,

either write things worth reading or do things worth writing." 

Days after I returned to work after having my first child in 1991, I found myself in a hotel meeting room with a hundred or so colleagues for a full day of training on using the corporate adopted Franklin Covey system.  Imagine! An entire day to learn how to plan and organize a calendar - all paper!  It seems unreal now.  Today Franklin Covey naturally offers multiple software versions of its systems.  The only change I've made is to downsize from the hefty classic planner to a pocket sized version.  My leather, deep burgundy, organizer is a small bundle of scratched softness with a snap that still works. 

And it does not crash.  The only error is human if I lose it.

Just to cement my uncool calendar attachment, I have kept several months-at-a-glance pages from over the years.  They are, in the spirit of A Christmas Carol, the ghosts of events past and they give me an odd sense of comfort.  I realize this "keeping" is all possible in the digital form but it does not speak to me.  I can't defend or explain my paper preference.   

Excuse me now while I figure out how the paperless world of Kindle works. Don't get me started on changing to ebooks.   

How about you? Paper or Electronic?