A Return to Calendaring

A phenomenon I've experienced during early retirement is the loss of routine, which I thought would make scheduling easier. At first, I tried to eliminate the use of a calendar, which I rigorously used during my working years. Without work, I thought it would be easy to manage all the activities and events without keeping a calendar. However, after a few months, I realized that a calendar was needed, because I no longer had a routine, and therefore, could not easily remember all the upcoming events.

This summer, I'm adding back reviewing each week in advance, to make sure we don't miss any of the fun activity options that are available. Earlier, I had identified Free Summer Activities for our Four Year Old and More Free Summer Activities for Kids which included free movies on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. Until last week, we were not able to attend due to other commitments and vacation.

However, this week we had a open Tuesday morning and I didn't remember the free movies until I drove by the theaters when returning from my workout. By the time I returned home and drove back to the theaters, both movies had filled up and there were no more seats. In this case, all was not lost. We were able to still see the movie on Wednesday, since the same shows are offered each day.

This experience made me realize that the loss of routine may make rigorous calendaring even more important, because many more options available, since work is no longer in conflict. In the past, work took first priority and other activities were fit in when there was time. Now, how we fill the entire week is a our choice, and thus, consciously knowing the options is more important.

I will probably even return to doing a To Do list for the future projects I want to get done :-)

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