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Calendaring To Make A Difference

By Mike Smith

A calendar is a tool to help you plan and execute a year. This calendar is unique in that it contains sections devoted to personal development, working with others, leading and working in groups. Notice it is drilled to fit into your notebook for ease of storage. The flap on the front cover folds over as a bookmark for quick reference to the current month. The back cover flap folds up to provide a pocket for important papers and forms. The book itself is an outline from which you build your year, and it has helpful hints built-in for quick reference as you go. You get to customize it to fit your personality. The more you do with it, the more useful it becomes to you; the more useful it becomes, the bigger the difference it will help you make.

Step One:Personalize your calendar. It's yours to doodle or draw on and color. Make it a fun tool you will want to use.

Step Two: Fill in the calendar dates. Locate a calendar with the dates and holidays filled in to use as a master. Fill in the months and days of the month. These "month pages" have been designed to give you the largest area for recording your many activities in an 11x17-inch format and still allow it to be small enough for you to easily carry it with you.

Step Three: Create reminder areas. Notice as you fill in the dates that there are many "day blocks" that are not used in that particular month. You may have one or more day blocks at the beginning or end of the month which are not numbered. Draw double or bold lines around those unused spaces and write REMINDERS at the top of those empty days. You will find a use for these spaces in the monthly planning stages of your preparation.

Step Four: Highlight special days. Draw boxes around all of the holidays and vacation days throughout the year to draw your attention to them more easily. When you are doing advance planning, you need to be aware of special dates.

Step Five: Create a personal improvement tool. Fill in the ovals at the top of the calendar pages. You may plan the entire year of self improvement or do it one or one quarter (three months) at a time. Whichever you choose, write a "character word of the month," a quote you like about that word and a short statement about a skill or talent you would like to focus on for the month. As you use this calendar daily, you can't help but be reminded of these things, and therefore strengthen their influence on your mind.

Step Six: Decide how you are going to use this calendar. How will you use color? It is a fact that color will enhance your use of this tool. Some people go as far as to color code their entries, i.e. red for school, blue for family, etc.. Others simply use lots of colors to differentiate entries. We suggest the use of color, but how is up to you.

Step Seven: Decide how you are going to use the calendar day spaces. They can be "to-do" lists or appointments or a combination of each. We suggest the daily list idea. Notice each block has in it 8 lines (lists longer than seven have a tougher time of getting done) and if you look closely you will see a smaller block off to the right. You can ignore that and use the entire space or use it as a prioritizing location or a check block when you have accomplished the list item.

Step Eight: Fill in the "big picture." Go through the calendar and fill in those big events and deadlines you know already in the seven Proactive Scheduling Areas: Family - birthdays and important dates; School - vacations, big tests, important academic deadlines; Work - your schedule and vacations; Self- hobby shows or vacations or trips; Community Service- Earth Day, blood drives, food drives; spiritual retreats, church/synagogue meetings, religious services or events, study groups; Friends - birthdays, performances or events you would like to support.

Step Nine: Schedule your scheduling time. The greatest secret to making the difference in your life developing the HABIT of holding a Personal Planning Meeting (PPM) each week (same day works best) to make the decisions about your activities for the next week.

Step Ten: Fine-tune your weekly activities. Each week needs to contain activities in each of the six Proactive Scheduling Areas. Balance between these areas is the goal. (Balance does not mean equal time. It does mean quality attention and it is very difficult to do without a calendar.) As you decide, schedule the activities in the day blocks. That simple act will help move the plans from "wishes" to "actions." If you are heavy on school one week - studying for finals - then make it up in the other areas the next week when the finals are over.

Step Eleven: Live your calendar. Make a habit of using this tool everyday at least first thing in the morning and last thing at night like a DAILY PERSONAL PLANNING MEETING. Fewer things will slip away from you. Be flexible. Move those things that did not happen today to tomorrow and enjoy checking off those things you accomplished.

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