Recently a millenial at work told me she doesn't keep a calendar. She “just remembers” to go to work despite a really weird schedule we keep at the Emergency Communications Center with 12 hour days and alternating weeks. And I guess she either remembers, or doesn't, everything else in her life.
Just relating her comment makes me anxious.
I could never.
I've tried multiple organizational strategies, from everything-in-a-wall-calender to Franklin Covey, and a range of paper and online solutions along the way. [Dear Google, I really wanted this to work out between us!]
When another co-worker was frustrated she was forgetting events and plotting to buy a new calendar, she claimed she found the one that would solve her problem. She was poised to order it.
“Oh? Why's that?"
She then embarked on an exhaustive tour of the features of this particular calendar - tabs, monthly sheets, note pages, removable weekly pages, etc. etc.
The usual stuff all organizational systems have.
I then imparted to one piece of wisdom I feel comfortable sharing with others. “Do you know which organizational system works the best?”
“Which one?” she asked, mostly out of courtesy. I figure she had already hit the button to place the order.
“The one you use,” I said. Probably smugly.
New Year, New Planner. Ugh.
We all know the seductive lure of the new year, the idea that with a new planner, a new calendar, you can review everything and get on top of your life. This will make everything fall in line, become orderly and predictable.
We also tell ourselves that if we moved to that fixer-upper house in a small village in a foreign country, we would likely become the love object of the most attractive local person and our lives would become simple and beautiful.
These are versions of the same lie.
Things feel out of control because life is messy. And because you aren't using the tools you have.
This is all to say that my friend Brian David Hall proposed I experiment with Obsidian for notetaking when I asked for suggestions on boosting my blog.
But his advice, like mine, transcended methodologies.
His advice was that the only structure that matters is the one that increases one-on-one interaction. But that's a different post.