This post sponsored (not really) by Google Calendar…making busy schedules slightly less stressful, but so much more colorful! And by Epson scanners (without a document feeder)…providing fodder for repetitive motion injury suits everywhere.
Let me start by saying, I love Google Calendar. So much that I (almost) didn’t want an iPhone for fear it wouldn’t sync properly…oh, wait. There’s an app for that! GooCal, and it’s free! I have 4 kids, one husband, two dogs, and myself to keep track of. One kid is in college, and the other three are in two different school districts (long story… read back a post or two). Mr. W is in the reserves, so drills once a month, not on the same weekend every month, and travels a LOT with his regular job. The dogs are, well, dogs, so don’t take up much calendar space except around shot time. And me? Well, I have doctors appointments for my perpetual state of being sick, work meetings that I hate, but have to go to, the occasional work trip and plenty of scheduled overtime.
Beyond all that are doctor’s appointments for all 6 of us, driver’s ed appointments, field trips, visits to the ex-men, holiday plans, vacations and trips, birthdays, and anything else under the sun that we should probably remember but probably won’t. I also track all our bills on a calendar. Due dates are input and recurring and bills that are the same every month are input as such. It is a lifesaver to help me remember due dates, amounts due, and budget. I can also change the color of each “event” to show that the bill has been paid.
It’s a truly invaluable tool for anyone who, like me, tends to the side of chaos, but is something that could be handy for anyone at all, especially when you can access it from any computer, tablet, or smart phone. Each topic can have its own calendar, and can be shared (with see-only to full privileges) individually with any other google account holder. And each one can be toggled to display or not in your master calendar. This is handy if, like me, you have a cacophony of colors spread across your screen every time you pull it up. Let me give you a picture;
- My calendar – dark blue
- Mr. W – purple
- Mr. W’s drill sched – blue
- the boy – dark pink
- the girl – light pink
- the step-boy – dark purple
- the step-girl – light purple
- birthdays – yellow
- bills; acct #1 – light brown
- bills; acct #2 – dark brown
- paydays/rent – green
- vacations – light green
- holidays – dark green
- anything important – orange
- the end of the world – red (12/21/2012 – hee, hee)
I’m considering adding another color for Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts events (which have started this year), but the whole thing is becoming a little too much. See, every month, I have lines and lines of color across my calendar for all the things we are slated for. Appointments are scattered here and there, but the color bars, that’s where that cacophony I mentioned comes from. We average 28 out of 30 days having something in each calendar block, and about 7 of those have so many somethings that I have to access a pop-out window to see the full extent of overextension that I have that day. Granted, our busiest calendars are the bills calendars, but it’s still an eye-sore to look at.
And the girl wants to do ballet.
And the boy wants to play basketball.
And the step-girl is full-time with us.
…so many colors….
All kidding aside, it is a wonderful tool without which I may possibly go crazy, or bankrupt, or both…
And on to my next sponsor: if this post seems a little disjointed, it’s because it is. Thanks to the wonderful newbie status in my office, contributed by the fact that I’m generally pleasant at work, I have been honored with a very high level challenge…yeah, can’t even keep a straight face with that one – for the last week, I’ve been scanning. And nothing else. Page after page after page of really old, only in paper copy mishap data. 4 boxes total, and I’m on box 1. So far, I’ve scanned 423 pieces of paper, and did I mention I’m only on box 1? I’m armed with my staple remover, stapler, and scanner – sans document feeder. It’s such fun. It’s totally mindless (my full potential obviously being recognized and put to use on this one!) so I could theoretically get other things done in the meantime with all my mad multitasking skills. Except that each scan takes 30 seconds. And then I have to change the page. *switch* And once each document is scanned *switch* it takes about 90 seconds to re-staple, decipher, sort, label and file*switch* each document. And since my computer is really slow (lovely government computer) *switch* it take about 3 seconds for it to register that I want to scan, and allow me to switch back to whatever window I was *switch* previously on. So. Much. Freaking. Fun. The scanner is on the right side of my desk, so my right shoulder is getting a *switch* heck of a workout. Then occasionally I’ll get a call or email I have to respond to, and my whole groove, if that’s what you could call it, gets *switch* interrupted and I can’t remember if I scanned the page that’s in there, or if I still need to. Of course *switch* the lovely government-restricted program I have doesn’t allow me to see the document and add to it. I know, you are jealous of my fun, aren’t you? I can see it in your eyes! *switch*
