Website Intimacy

I write this as I wait for the Liquid Paper on my day planner to dry.

The many organizational books I read say to put all your dates onto one calendar and use only that one. This is great in theory, but I really do not want to lug a calendar to church reminding me that I need to send a press release to PCWorld two months hence.

I have not yet found the perfect calendar, but I am happy to share with you my comments on two I really like, grid calendars and day planners.

Grid Calendars, not just for families and more
I used to take my grid calendar to the park and fill it out during football practice. Parents would stop and say, "I need something like that! Where did you get it?"

The beauty of the grid calendar is that the dates run along the y-axis, and along the x-axis. It has four or five columns, one for each family member. Each person reading the calendar has a special personal column, showing his or her appointments.

Workman
The Sandra Boynton version from Workman is widely available. One flaw: the first column is labeled "Mom." The problem with that is, what if I want to use the calendar in the office? The second is that although last year I resolved to stop giving calendars to my ex, I still do. Even if I still wanted to emasculate him, I would not do it by giving him a calendar that called him "Mom."

Portal
I prefer Portal's grid calendars to Workman's because Portal's grids are larger and their design is subtler. The calendar hangs on my wall after all. I don't want my guests to see dancing hippos. I prefer the muted flowers on the 2002 Portal calendar, the latest version I have. Portal calendars are harder to find in stores. I’m not quite sure they still sell them because you cannot see them online unless you log in to Portal's site?? More on that in a moment.

Day Planners
The Franklin Covey people suggest color coding your day planner to get the best use out of it. Umm....

Apparently, I don't get the best possible use out of my day planner, but I do rely on it. And every year about now I ask myself, "Do I want to spend $25-40 on new planner inserts, or is there a better calendar for me?"

This year when I had to replace my cell phone I tried ordering a BlackBerry, but my carrier would not give me a BlackBerry unless I upgraded my plan to the mobile internet. All I wanted was the darned calendar, but I didn't want it that badly.

I had waited long enough, though. 2009 dates dangled over my head. Yesterday was a rough day and I deserved a treat. So at lunchtime I bought what the office supply store had in stock: the 2009 Day-Timers planner inserts. Woo-hoo, Katharine! Live large!

Now I'm sorry I passed over the $40 Franklin Covey inserts when I first saw them. Franklin Covey is better than Day-timers for two reasons:

Franklin Covey pages are 1/2 inch wider than Day-Timers. You hold the inserts in 6-ring binders. The closer the hand moves to the binder rings, the harder it is to write neatly, so you miss the sacrificed 1/2 inch. (And no, I am not so tidy that I would take the page out of the binder so I can write “Sue-sewing machine” on the task list.)

The Day-Timer pages are infinitesimally thicker. The binder can only fit so many pages, so if I can’t fit in as many pages, I can’t plan so far ahead.

One reason the Day-Timer inserts are cheaper than the Franklin Covey is that the Franklin Covey ones include month-at-a-glance pages with tabs. I happened to have a spare set of Franklin Covey undated month-at-a-glance pages. I decided to use those.

Is there some reason Franklin Covey offers undated pages? I can buy them really cheaply on eBay. I would buy them, if only I didn’t dislike dating my own calendar. I suspect that the reason Franklin Covey sells them has something to do with the fact that Franklin Covey is based in Salt Lake City.

I understand that the LDS are supposed to keep a year’s supply of provisions on hand, for what cataclysm I don’t know. But if there should be a cataclysm, and if no one knows the day or hour, then the survivors will be very glad to have a calendar next to their year’s supply of modest underwear and paper towels.

Since I already had the month-at-glance calendar and I am not saving it up for the end times, I decided to date it myself and use it. Unfortunately, in an undercaffeinated state I copied the dates for April 2009 into the May spread. (Obviously, were I a Mormon, this would not have been a problem.)

Hence the Liquid Paper.

At last, the coffee
I rely on my daily planner, and I rely on my daily coffee.

Yesterday, though, I had a problem with the coffee. I tried to open a new bag, but the adhesive was stronger than the bag. The glue held; I ripped the bag in two places; coffee beans flew all over.

I like Eight-o-clock coffee. It smells good, and it reminds me of grocery shopping with my mother as a girl. I thought the folks at A&P might want to know that consumers were having a problem with their packaging.

I visited the Eight-o-clock Coffee site (the URL was right on the bag.) I clicked on “contact.” And here’s where I started to get peeved. They required me to enter my name and address. They required me to double-enter my email address, just so I could send them a heads-up.

A&P already has too much information about me thanks to my loyal shopper card. I was not about to enter myself into yet another database.

So I cut the product information off the bottom of the bag and mailed it to them with an anonymous note.

Here is where I think A&P and Portal misuse the internet: the internet is great at putting information into customer’s hands right when they want it.

When I opened my coffee bag it was 5 a.m. I doubt that if I had been motivated to call, anyone would have been there to answer. Maybe in the old days I would have written them a letter, but probably not (no full address on the bag). So they would never have known about this potential problem.

Before the internet, I might have called or written to Portal, asking them for their calendar catalog. They would have paid to print and mail it. And by the time I received it I might have lost interest in this subject, and tossed it in the recycling.

As it was, I found both sites right away. I was ready to interact with them on the spot. In Portal’s case, I would have put a link from the blog right to their calendars. They both lost me by “requiring” too much information. I can’t be the only person around who would rather use a .42 stamp than include themselves on one more database.

At least, I hope not.