After a generous summer holiday nothing feels quite as good as getting back to work. This new academic year is quite special: now that my studies are completed, I have the luxury of time and the choice of what to do with it.
But time that is not spoken for has a way of slipping away. This is why one of my first tasks for the semester has been to set up a spacious wall calendar, while keeping track of daily commitments on my phone's calendar. The reasoning is that by considering time, I will not be a slave to it. Worst case scenario? I feel guilty about unheeded reminders. Which is far better than forgetting.
For a wall calendar I used the easy and flexible free download from PDF Calendar. This is a user-friendly interface that produces a simple yet elegant calendar. Most importantly, it allows you to choose the first day of the week. This is vital to anyone living in Oman, where the week starts on Saturday!
As to my phone calendar, I use the native calendar app on my Android-based Nexus One. Android's calendar is designed to sync with Google Calendars, where I tend to diarise events while online. Syncing eliminates most of the headaches that can be caused by keeping calendars in different places.
The problem with planning is, of course, that life happens. As far as I am concerned, this is exactly what planning is for. By being organized, it is possible to stay on top of things. This means that when an emergency – or an unmissable opportunity – comes up, abandoning the plan is not a catastrophe. Does planning jeopardize freedom? I think not. Even constant spontaneity can become a tedious routine.
For now, I am happy to spend some time planning. What the plans are, well, that remains for a later post...
Image: katarzyna24
