Calendaring

Thank Google for Android and Calendars.

My schedule is somewhat unpredictable. My current target is acting, which calls for coming into auditions within 48 hours notice. I support this lifestyle by tutoring kids in their homes. Sometimes they set appointments in advance. Sometimes their fathers call me at 11pm, say they're in big trouble, and can I come to help by 8am the next morning?

Every audition and student is in its own place. So how can I remember all the places and times to be where when?

I don't. I leave that to the internet.

When I first signed up for Google Calendar, I tried using it as kind of a novelty. Honestly it wasn't much worth the time and effort to enter in the few things I had on my schedule, since I'd remember them all anyway. If I had a lot to do, I would put it down in an old-fashioned paper planner. The one I kept on the corner of my desk throughout college.

But nowadays, I keep that all online. I'll enter it into my computer and it's available on any computer hooked up to the internet. More importantly though, it's on my phone. I pull up my phone on my calendar, tap the address of my next appointment, and it comes up in Google maps. I use maps to get directions via the subway, and then once I'm off the subway maybe turn on the phone's GPS to make sure I'm walking in the right direction after that.

My parents often make fun of people who have to enter in all their little appointments in their digital planners and phones, partially because it takes them two to three times as long as it does for my parents to just jot something down in their paper appointment books. Thing is, my parents have offices to keep their calendar in. I work all over the place. It may take me a while to enter stuff in. But everything after that becomes a lot faster. No looking up directions, transit schedules, or maps. Just make the pretty blue triangle follow the pretty dotted line on the little screen I keep in my pocket.

Until I run out of batteries, that is. Then I'm kinda screwed. Until I get in front of anything else with internet, anyway.