I use both the monthly calendar and the day to day section. In the day to day section I write to do lists for the day and big items fill up the weekend. I use the agenda to track my training for races, to keep track of Shelter meetings and events, to track work activities and progress and to try to organized when on the weekend I may finally get around to my resume and my thesis. (Let's hope it's not never!). At any point in time you can find training calendar tucked in the back with formal plans. A MILLION post its with to do notes, phone numbers to follow up on for Shelter activities, notes from non-profit trainings I attended, usernames I need to remember, lists of cool races I want to run and things to do. Since we don't have formal hours at work each night I print from Outlook my calendar for the next day and put in my agenda accordingly. With my new role stepping in as Development Manager from more an associate position, I find it nice to start/conclude each day with going over the list of to-do from the Outlook Calendar and adding to it as needed. I recently redid all my files so that they were color-coded to match the color-codes I'd used on the Development Calendar. While at home I am completely disheveled - though I think my partner is my crime is much to blame for this - I think that systems and order in the workplace make it easier to move forward. I took my boyfriend's advice and have a notebook for notes, one for to dos (plus my daily calendar printout) and a section for phone messages. I also have to-do lists and calendars posted on my desk. So far so good. While this may be overkill, I realized quickly that we had few notes on where items were other than from my boss' memory. I wanted to make sure that we had the system's in place to manage activities so anyone could follow along. We'll see how this comes along. I just have to make myself keep to the system rather than follow the easy route and let it slack.
I can't wait to go get an agenda for work so I can continue to put in early meetings, activities and try to carve out time for myself and personal needs like attending to school, career training, and the Shelter. I also find myself totally slacking about training at the gym so I quickly need my agenda back and to formalize a training calendar. I am sure I could do all these things online or put them in my phone (sometimes I do) but I like the feeling of writing things down and I love post-its most of all and being able to put in phone numbers to follow up with and tracking to do lists. And people still use business cards - where do those go - AGENDA!!
Do you use an agenda? Do you miss it when it's gone? hoping to get to Coach this weekend!
