It crashed, died and erased all my appointments constantly. I found new ways to foul it all up when I upgraded to a Treo. That device kept repeating everything I put in each day, so I was living a confusing, Groundhog Day schedule. The dentist at 10:15? Again?
My husband and I tried Google calendars, which became a competitive scheduling calamity in which he blocked out completely unreasonable chunks of time for suspect “staff meetings” during the exact times that certain football games were on or maybe on a Saturday morning when I had suggested a family hike. Yeah, right.
Last December, I got a teeny, tiny lime green Moleskine planner that I shoved in my purse, hidden. And it felt good to be on paper again.
Folks like me who use digital and paper are called “co-users,” and we’re keeping sales of the daily planners steady, said Sopko — the Day Runner guy.
And that’s remarkable, because even though many people are heading over to digital, a whole new population of young people is going to paper.
“Younger kids, people leaving grad programs and going into the work world, are buying their first paper planners because they feel more professional using them,” Sopko said. “They say: ‘If I’m sitting with my smartphone or laptop, who knows what I’m doing? It might look like I’m not paying attention.’ ” So they’re going retro.
Regardless of age, many folks are a little secretive and even defensive about their paper dependency. But it’s one area where a lot of time management and life coach instructors don’t really scold.
“Are your tools helping you? That’s what matters,” said Adam Merrill, the vice president and general manager for innovations at FranklinCovey headquarters in Utah.
Basically, being digital isn’t cool if you’re still a mess.
“Rule your technology, don’t let your technology rule you,” Merrill said, repeating one of the company’s mantras.
Fantastic. A bigger fuchsia planner will totally rule 2012 for me. You?
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