4 Reasons I Still Love Printed Calendars

Call me old-school, but every year I look forward to acquiring new calendars: datebooks for my purse and wall calendars for my cubicle, bedroom and next to my landline telephone (yes, I have one of those at home, too). While I appreciate my Outlook and Gmail calendars for their alerts and for providing collaborative capabilities – in addition to being backups in case I lose my datebook – I don’t think I could ever give up printed calendars. Here are four reasons why, some more sentimental than others: 1. I can look ahead. I’m a planner. I think in another life I was an event coordinator. I like to come up with activities and schedule fun stuff. Flipping through my datebook pages or glancing up at my wall calendar excites me as I anticipate all the festivities coming up. 2. Physically writing down activities helps me remember them. Studies have found that you remember things better when you write them down. Sure, when I cut and paste events into my online calendars, I can set up an alert to remind me, but so often I’ve been caught off-guard by a meeting or birthday that I stored only online because the reminder didn’t give me enough time to prepare, and I didn’t retain the activity through the physical act of writing. 3. It’s faster. I know many people are addicted to their iPhones and Droids, but I still feel clunky with my smartphone – I have to unlock it, scroll to the calendar, open it, type in an event with my pudgy fingers and save it. Often I get frustrated with the typing part and end up with a bunch of abbreviations and customized shorthand. Sometimes my phone drags or it reboots itself. With my datebook, I just pull it from my bag and flip to the appropriate page. Voila! 4. An attractive calendar is a small piece of art. I love the calendars small businesses hand out at the end of the year, because I’m always amused by the collection of photos, art or other images they’ve compiled for each month. Here at PsPrint, we have customers who’ve designed calendars featuring derby girls, homemade robots, cowboys, adorable animals, children’s artwork and even accordion-playing pinup girls. I always choose calendars based on their graphic design, and when I turn the page of my wall calendar on the first of each month, I get a pleasant surprise at the new image.