I actually don’t know how I survived before Google calendar, which, okay, is a bit of an exaggeration. It is probably my most frequently used Google tool (aside from my email) and has been, since they released it. I used paper calendars for a long time – Moleskein academic planners to be precise – and until I got my first Android smartphone, I ran the two together, at least for primary appointments.
At the moment, I have 10 calendars in my google calendars, plus another 3 or so that I don’t have set to display. They include: my general appointments, stuff that is shared with my flatmate – i.e. house related stuff, joint events -, gigs I have tickets for, days when irregular direct debits go out, birthdays and one for putting interesting events in, if I happen to be free nearer to the time.
I have the CILIP London events calendar, a meal planning calendar (again, shared with my flatmate) and a calender for the occasional evening work I do in an academic library in my not-always-displayed list.
So, yes, a lot of calendars and a lot of uses. Since getting a smartphone, I have stopped keeping my general appointments in a paper calendar as well because I almost always have my phone with me. I don’t sync my work outlook calendar with it, partly because fighting with Outlook is not high on my list but also because unless it is something before my usual working hours (I do some times have early or late meetings to account for global offices), I keep it at work.
So, that’s Google Calendar! Evernote, next.
I wish I could love Evernote more but I do find it difficult. I use the app on my phone fairly frequently for taking pictures of things I see that would make good gifts or as a reminder for later and I take pictures of all the business cards I get and any notes I’ve made on them but that’s about it. The Windows version drives me insane and I rarely clip websites, partly because they just never seemed to display in a useful manner. I don’t keep my todo list in there either because I either keep a paper one – I like the actuality of crossing something off on paper – or I have a longer term/computer based on in Todo.txt on my phone.
I should sit down and poke it again but uh, yeah, that would involve time and if I had that, I wouldn’t be writing backlogged posts1 ;)
