How do you keep track of recurring stuff?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I use my Outlook calendar, which syncs with my phone. I put EVERYTHING on it, with reminders. The dog’s regular grooming appointments, plus HeartGuard & NextGuard pills, putting out the trash, hearing aid maintenance, regular yard mowing, classes and regular meetings–this is in addition to birthdays and reminders involving other people. If I sign up for something that has an annual renewal, I go to a few days short of one year from the signup date and put a reminder there. I leave virtually nothing up to my own memory.

Re recurring events-- the thing is, stuff has to be done at varying intervals. Some weekly, some every other week, some every three or six weeks, some monthly or at another monthly interval. Even though I’m retired, there are still a lot of routine tasks and maintenance to keep everything running and me and the animals out of jail.

I used a Palm Pilot back in the day, and when it went belly-up, I actually found a way to transfer 10-ish years of Palm data to my Outlook calendar. I use an app called akruto-sync to sync my android phone’s (BlackBerry Key2) calendar with my computer calendar. I get popup reminders on my computer and on my phone. I also take advantage of web sites that will send you reminders, like for quarterly IRS payments, and car registration renewal. I let the latter get away from me, and rushed to send in the check today, which is the last day. (I can’t renew my plates online.) Dang. No system is foolproof.

I have a good friend who doesn’t use a digital calendar at all. :eek: She writes stuff on a paper wall calendar. Of course, we all managed with those back when we had to, or carried around a big, fat Day Runner, but how does she keep up with recurring appointments? Just write them all in ahead? (No, she doesn’t.) When I’ve inquired out of curiosity, she gets defensive. (Oh really? :dubious:) I was asking another friend last month about an event in January for a group we both belong to. She said, “I can’t write that down, because I don’t have a January calendar yet.” WTF??

So how do you keep track of stuff? If Sebastian Cabot or Ann B. Davis live at your house and they also clean, groom the dog, and plan/cook healthy, delicious meals, then never mind.

2

I use Google Calendar for most personal things, and Outlook Calendar for work-related stuff. You can set reminders every X number of weeks, once a month, annually and so forth.

3

I don’t have a pet, so I don’t need any reminders for that. The rest I just remember. If I don’t remember, it wasn’t that important.

At work, my meetings and tasks are in Outlook.

4

I installed app Wife 3.0.

It is expensive but it keeps track of what I should be doing and reminds me constantly. I have it set to inform me two weeks in advance, and then again two days in advance.

5

I have a budget program that reminds me whether I’ve paid my rent and other monthly bills. Which is not to say that there’s actual reminders, but if I come out of a month having spent $0 on the rent that suggests something is up.

All my other regular appointments are all on strict weekly schedules, so I’ve just learned what happens on which day of the week.

For irregular appointments I keep the appointment cards in a little stack on the desk and then usually don’t look at them. It’s a good thing that dentists and doctors call to confirm appointments; that acts as a reminder.

6

My awesome brain power. Occasionally I have to clean it out, trivial thoughts and pursuits clog up the works. :smiley:

7

Mostly memory. A few things are on Google calendar. For bills most are on automatic bill pay (credit card or direct debit from bank). Those which aren’t my policy is to immediately pay when I receive the bill.

8

I don’t think I have a ton of recurring things, but I put everything on my work calendar (Google) and make the personal ones like haircuts, recycling day, dog groomer etc. private.

9

Umm…I have a weird way of doing things, but it works:
I write on a wall calendar in my kitchen.
Really, it ain’t that hard.

Now sometimes it does take a bit of coordination, because I have use both hands…
one to lift up a couple of pages of the calendar to go,say, 4 months ahead, and the other to write “doctor Smith, 8:00am–no food after midnight.”

And if I have --horrors!–a recurring event, then it gets really, really complicated.
For season tickets to the symphony over the next six months, I have to lift each page individually, then hold it up awkwardly, then look sideways and reach for the printed program listings to check which day that month is relevant, then sometimes reach out with my other hand to flip through the program pages, and then use yet another hand to reach for the pen to write…–oops!!!–I need more hands!!!help!!! Oh, (phew!)that was a close call…my lovely spouse is here to save me…
It’s still easier than navigating on a screen through menus and pop-up windows, then discovering that the text field isn’t long enough to handle what I want to write, plus trying to figure out how to switch fonts or underline something,etc, etc.

Plus, it’s kinda fun to hold your wife’s hand in the kitchen. :slight_smile:

10

I have a budget spreadsheet for financial stuff.

Scheduled things usually are accompanied by an email, and that email stays in the inbox until it’s done with, then it’s archived. Only active or pending items remain in my inbox.

Everything else goes on the dry-erase calendar on the wall in the kitchen, with a cheat-sheet written on the back (with annual holidays, important birthdays, anniversaries, etc.).

11

I use memotome.com. It’s not secure, so I wouldn’t use it for anything that I wouldn’t want the world to know about, but it works great to send me reminders to do things, and when I am out of town, I can set it to send reminders to my husband’s email account so he can take care of taking the recycling to the curb, etc. while I am gone.

We also have a wall calendar in the kitchen that I get him to write down any stuff he’s doing that I should know about - like times when he’ll be at school late and won’t be home for dinner.

Bill-paying sites are all set to send me reminders when the new bill is ready to be viewed, and those stay in the inbox until they’re paid.

12

Google calendar on my phone. I always carry it with me, I can enter dates up to the end of the century, and if you use a wall calendar, you have to leave it at home and can’t refer to it on the go.

13

Work stuff is in my work calendar, as usual.

Home stuff / appointments are in a Google calendar shared with my wife. This is largely our “system of record” for potentially conflicting things (e.g. we can’t both be doing something this Thursday evening unless we get a babysitter) and reminders of long term things (e.g. our theater ticket subscription dates, concerts, etc.).

I put some reoccurring things on there, like my piano lessons, but for weekly stuff like putting out the trash I just remember it. That strategy works well enough for things that are as regular as trash pickup. It worked less well for slightly more complicated things, like the “e.g. every third Thursday” style schedule for street sweeping on our Berkeley street. A fair number of parking tickets and early morning scrambles to move the car resulted back then …

14

My system is substantially the same as chappachula’s system, as described several posts above. (Simple Minds Think Alike™)

It works quite nicely, up to a certain level of complexity I suppose. One might argue, as chappachula seems to, that all the on-line or computerized complexity may be overkill.

I’ll just add a few details:
My fundamental strategy is to note a future event on my paper calendar at the time I am thinking of it, or first become aware of it. For example, if I come home with a library book, I’ll note the due date immediately, essentially while the book is still in my hand. Likewise if I come home from a doctor and a follow-up appointment has been scheduled. Likewise when I get a new credit or debit card, I’ll promptly note the next expiration date.

For items occurring in a future year:
If it’s next year (and occasionally for things farther out than that), I’ll note it at the bottom of the December page. Part of my New Year’s Day Ritual is to copy all those items onto the new calendar in their proper places. (Typically only about a dozen items.)

For things farther out, and for recurring items, I have a paper manila folder with little one-page calendars for the next dozen years or so. So, for example, my next drivers license renewal is noted on the page for 2022. My next tetanus shot is noted on the page for 2027. There is a separate page for annually recurring items, like car registration renewal, insurance renewals, other annual stuffs like that. The New Year’s Day Ritual includes writing all those items for the new year onto the calendar.

I have a separate schedule, written out for the next 20 years or so (I should live so long) for sending out those Annual Credit Report Requests, which I do on a 13-month cycle.

If my life were as complificated, say, ThelmaLou’s, this scheme might not be adequate. But it works fine for me. I don’t need reminders for regular weekly things like taking my meds or putting out the trash. Like ThelmaLou, I do make note of many items a week or several ahead of the actual day, especially where there are deadlines involved.

15

That’s what my wife and I use - by preference. We both use the Month At-A-Glance, which has about a 2" square w/ 7 lines for each day. It is no effort at all to enter recurring things. For example, the 2-3 days a week she teaches each semester; the 2 days a week I hold hearings; my weekly music jams; her 2 monthly book clubs… Every once in a while we make a point of sitting down and “reconciling” our calendars, to make sure neither of us missed anything important.

Really simple. Simply don’t understand any digital system being simpler or better.

When our kids were young, we had the one master calendar on the fridge. If something was important, it went on the calendar. If something didn’t get put on the calendar, then you couldn’t complain if something else took precedence.

Trash goes out the same day every week. Do you really need to put that on the calendar? Do you also remind yourself to eat 3x a day, and go to work? :wink: And I mow the lawn when it needs mowing, not on a specific calendar date.

I have to schedule my work several months in advance. I just handed in my May schedule. So I bought my 2020 calendar back in August or September or whenever I had to give my January schedule.

16

Work stuff is in Outlook, because I have Outlook at work.

Home stuff is on Google Calendar, one of a few spreadsheets I keep for specific projects, or my phone’s alarms.

17

Ah…I remember that phase of my life.

It was nice. I miss it.

My current scheme is a whiteboard in the kitchen. Contents - everyone’s recurrent weekly stuff, who’s cooking each night, and Number One Daughter’s work shifts.

Other appointments go in the phone calendar. We used to do a wall calendar but it’s just not as in your face as the whiteboard, and it’s useless for appointments because I’m never near it when I find out about them. Any future commitment I find out about must be nailed down within 30 seconds, or it’s gone for good - that means phone.

Also have a little notebook in my pocket, and ever day I write down “The List” - things that I have to do at a specific time today, plus things that have to be done generally. Things get written down fresh every day, till they’re accomplished. While I’m writing down my list I also count up how many of yesterday’s things got done, and draw myself a little encouraging picture of the number, with stars and exclamation marks and other froufrou stuff

This is all part of BEING “Wife n.0” I’d love to outsource it, but ain’t nobody gonna pick it up if I don’t

18

Calendar on the office wall. Post-It notes on the monitor.

19

Digital calendar - Google calendar, hooking into Microsoft Calendar app.
Recurring stuff I’ve set up as a recurring task in Google calendar - for example, every two weeks the recycling bin goes out to the curb; on alternate weeks, it’s the green waste bin. I’ve set them up from when I started until…forever, really.
Work schedule the same - mine varies, so as I get my next roster, it goes into Google calendar. Other things as well.
By the way, has anyone else ever booked, say, an airline flight, gotten the email tickets - and then found it in your calendar? It’s a setting, and it’s damned handy, but it’s also kinda creepy.

20

Yes. To wit:

To my fellow digital calendar users: SOLIDARITY!

It’s not that my life is all that complicated… I’m a household of one with three pets and no (human) family-- plus, I’m retired. But there are recurring things to be done and no one to pass the ball to. When I think about couples where both adults work **and **they have several children **and **several pets-- now that’s complicated.