The Power of the Calendar

I have tried many things to help keep my day to day life organized and easy to manage, and one of the strongest tools I used that has helped me get the results I have wanted is the Todo list.

Yes Yes, a simple paper, with a few squares and words is how I manage my day. I have been in the habit of making Todo lists for about 13 years now (now being 2026).

Though I have noticed a few problems with Todo lists, that cannot be rectified with a "better" Todo list, and that is you can only prepare for Today and Tomorrow, that is it. 

Now that alone is a strong reason to start creating your own Todo lists, aside from the fact that when you have been doing it for a long enough time, even just a week, it gives you the ability to look back at your past days as if your are watching a preview of what you accomplished, what you have abandoned, and what you are yet to still do. 

It is a good way to encapsulate the past, but where it struggles is in creating a managable future. 

I have tried using it to remind myself of things I should do but can only do it in a weeks time, or making notes about reconnecting with someone I wanted to catch up with in the future, but this is not easy and that is mainly due to the linear nature of a todo list. 

This opened a whole new percpective to me about the usage of a calendar and over the past few months I have been managing basically every aspect of my life other than daily todo's and my network with a calendar. 

Maybe you are thinking about better organizing your life so you can get a grip of what is going on, here are some basic pointers that I figured out and it helped me a ton:

The Basics: 

1) Always be checking your calendar.

2) The moment you get something coming up in the future, add it to the calendar

3) Screw colour organization, or multiple calendars have one calendar and the only colours your need is to seperate birthdays, and work from everything else.

Unconventional tips that help a ton:

• Being that Friend

We all know that one person that calls when you have a special thing happening in your life, and you barely even mentioned it to them, yet they remembered and took the time to call you / message you wishing you the best. The way you become this friend with ease, is by adding not only all of your events to your calendar add important events in your friends lives as well, not only their birthdays, also add their anniversaries, their childrens birthdays, their next vacation, or their big test.

• Add moments of Reconnecting

Nobody likes to see an entire year go by and you did not manage to connect at all with that one friend, instead make the time to connect with them by simply adding a "Re-connect event" on your calendar. Maybe you don't want to go an entire year without speaking to your dear Aunt, go on your calendar pick 2 days that are well apart from each other and add an event reminding you to drop them a call, or send them a text. This goes a long way for many people.

• Goal setting

Some goals have just a huge time right between starting it and getting it done. Maybe you have been wanting to get more into reading but you just can't seem to do it, create random reminders throughout your calendar that serve the purpose of simply reminding you. Maybe you want to set aside money to start that business you have always been thinking about, create reminders that remind you just before you get paid, to set aside money. I do this for 1 on 1 meet ups, if I am meeting with a friend, prospect or even family member, I have a 

• Create Pre-Reminder

One thing I don't like about cooking is the fact that before I make anything involving meat I have to take it out way in advance if it is to properly defrost, now if I know I am going to make a specific meaty meal, I just put a reminder on the time I intend to start making it and make it send me a reminder 4-5 hours in advance so I can take the meat out of the freezer. This doesn't only apply for cooking, it can also apply for renewing your drivers liscence and so much more.

• PRO TIP - USE AI

Recently I have been getting a ton of invites for events and birthday parties, rather than adding those dates and times and locations to my calendar myself, I simply send the invite to Claude Ai and he adds it to my calendar for me. Look for how you can make using the calendar to better manage your life easier with Ai.

I hope this helped you see how you can use your calendar to better organize your life and manage the relationships that you cherish.