More than one calendar?

I always wanted to be an agony aunt

TLDR: There are a few ways to split work and leisure. There are also multiple ways to share the info between two people and their calendars. Increase efficiency & reduce friction by selecting a set-up that works for you.
Word count: 418
Read time: 2 min

Each week, I get a handful of questions from readers. I always answer them, individually. But from now on when the issue is interesting and the reader agrees, I may include the question here in this newsletter, appending my answer. Agony-aunt-style.

So, if you have a question about time management, intention, procrastination, focus, timeboxing, or the like, feel free to reply to this email and I’ll reply, privately or publicly (as you prefer).

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Question, from Sara R

What do you think about having 2 calendars? I have my Outlook and during workdays I do enter personal stuff there as well. But I have a paper agenda for weekends and time off. My husband uses Todoist but I find a paper agenda a break from the screens and a better example for my child. She already sees us so much with our laptops.

Personally, I just use one calendar. Specifically, it’s a Google calendar, though I sync it with Microsoft Outlook, so I can show people how it looks there when I’m giving timeboxing talks. It’s also synced with my iPhone where I use the Gmail calendar (but used to use and still keep Spark, mostly for the inbox count feature).

In my calendar, I colour-code each entry one of:

• Blue — standard work

• Green — high-value work

• Purple — timeboxing- / book-related work

• Yellow — leisure

I very much prefer the convenience of having it all in one place.

And as for paper, yes, I certainly see the benefit, especially if it’s on open display for the family to see. That might be useful and interesting and welcoming for your daughter to see. But for me, the convenience of keeping it digital would outweigh even that. Being in the cloud, it’s synced with any device you have, accessible anywhere, backed up, shareable and, searchable. That’s lots of upside.

But the example we set younger people with regard to screen usage is important. How I’ve resolved this is to use timeboxing in order to (amongst other things) set aside quality time with my kids (and coloured yellow). Last weekend, for example, I had 4 hours on Saturday boxed out to go to this Butterfly Park with my daughter. I believe there was no better use of time in the whole universe.

Finally, think about (a) sharing your calendar with more people, including those you live with, (b) sharing individual appointments with others, and (c) the difference between the two. It’s also addressed in Timeboxing Chapter 6 — For collaboration.

Thank you, Sara, for unlocking my Agony Aunt career level.