Yet Another To-Do List, Plan B

 Obviously I'm not solving the world's big problems here.

I love index cards. I love them so much I almost purchased multi-colored ones. After working this system for awhile, I managed to get half my projects finished. So it did give me the focus I was looking for. Then I was distracted by a couple of unexpected events and when I came back to my bulletin board it was covered with other paper and I was deep into creating my 2026 gardening calendar and I lost track of where I was with the index cards. 

My 3 x 4 foot magnetic bulletin board isn't big enough. I need a bulletin WALL. 

I've thought about getting a smartphone so I can have my external brain with me every second of the day but there's two issues with that. First, my eyes can't manage a screen that small. Two, it's overkill for my lifestyle. I'm not driving and flying all over the place. I don't need to be reading text messages while simultaneously navigating a sidewalk banging myself into light standards. I don't need to be instantly accessible to everyone in the world. Or vice versa. It's on a par with opening a Facebook account. I keep thinking about it but in 20 years I still haven't done it. 

I read that successful people don't keep to-do lists. They put everything on their calendar. This could well be true. Something I have noticed over time is that everything on my calendar gets done. Some of what I put on paper gets done but paper tends to wander at my house. 

I had to seriously look at the insanity of keeping a notebook and pen in every corner where I might have an interesting thought. I'm not saying this is not an interesting method, actually it's quite chaotic but, since most of my clothes don't have pockets, one fix would be to wear a belly-bag 24/7 and have one (small) notebook and one pen.

I've tried paper calendars. A day planner is too big for me to carry around, even from one room to another. A smaller calendar is too small. I've tried printing calendars, one month per page. I've tried posting them to my bulletin board. I've tried keeping them in a 3-ring binder. They all require that I'm tethered to a pencil and eraser.

I have an E-notebook for thinking out loud and doodling but the calendar function is not sophisticated enough for my taste. Even if it was I'd be constantly wondering which room I left it in. 

I don't keep files in The Cloud. I don't need to sync between devices. I don't even keep the WiFi turned on at home. 

So, my single calendar is on my desktop computer. Yes, some of us old dinosaurs still use desktops. 

Since I use the desktop to check my email it makes sense to have my calendar in the same place. 

I tried the calendar method some years ago but never got it quite finessed. I'm trying again. Anything recurring daily or weekly doesn't sit well on a calendar because it clutters up the place. The fix I found for this is to put an asterisk before a recurring item and drag and drop it to its next date instead of having it already there multiple times. As with the index cards, I only put one item per day to be worked on for a limited amount of time, an hour say. 

The other thing is to categorize those items with a color; small color bar in the case of Thunderbird calendar, maybe a colored font in others. This helps to know where the end of the line is when dragging items forward. Creating multiple calendars in different colors, although it looks nice, is actually not a good choice as each calendar has to be backed up separately. If you're trying to simplify your life, multi-colored calendars is a digital rabbit hole too far.

All this to say, it doesn't matter what or where your calendar is, if to-do lists make you crazy, try your calendar. It's a more authoritative voice. The calendar says, Here in this box is what you need to get done today. A to-do list says, Here's the stuff you should do but if you don't it will still be here tomorrow and too often it is.