The tyranny of the shared calendar
‘Have you added it to the shared calendar?’
No question has more potential to spark arguments in my house, and if I’m being really honest, it’s probably my fault.
The person always asking the question is my husband, Sam. The answer is generally: no, of course not, it was enough of a slog organising the flipping event in the first place, let alone adding it to a shared diary. And if you think I’m rearranging drinks with the girls to make way for your hygienist appointment, you can think again.
The main problem is that despite nine years of encouragement from Sam, I completely refuse to give up my old-fashioned paper diary. I’ve already spent a long time analysing all the options available for 2023, browsing the stationery shelves of Waterstones in a pervy manner. Every year I know when I’ve found The One: a lovely William Morris pattern, magnetic closing mechanism and a week-to-view per spread. Phwoar. Unfortunately, my most precious belonging is also the biggest bone of contention in my marriage, because it’s touch and go whether I’ll remember to add events from my paper diary to the shared digital version, and here lies the path to marital strife.
Last December we discovered that Sam had booked a last minute trip to Toulouse on the same day as my long-awaited festive afternoon tea at Claridge’s. Cue urgent phone calls to the grandparents offering them a two-year-old at short notice.
This December, said toddler suddenly had the social schedule of a Noughties It-girl, so we’ve been juggling Christmas lunches with third birthday parties, mulled wine meet-ups with visits to Santa’s grotto. Oh, and we had to remember which day to send her to nursery dressed as a shepherd.
Of course the answer to this is efficient use of a family diary, whether a colour-coded Google calendar, an app such as Family Wall or, as one impressive mum friend explains, a giant chalkboard in the kitchen, divided up into sections for each family member. This sounds extremely sensible, and is sadly something I’ll never do.
I’m not the only person hopelessly wedded to pen and paper though. I’ve looked up the stats to back myself, and apparently nearly a third of us are still living in the Dark Ages (although I am very stressed out by the 2% of people who just ‘use their brain’ to remember everything. HOW?!)
I threw the diary question open at work, and discovered a newfound respect for one colleague who admitted that she secretly loves a shared calendar mess-up, and thrives off the masochism of having to throw all plans up in the air when one thing gets forgotten. Is that me? I wondered. Am I just playing this game for the drama?
But I think the answer is more prosaic than that. I simply don’t want to hand over any more of my life to my phone. The bloody thing is practically glued to me from dawn ‘til dusk, and, as I point out to my husband ‘I don’t want Google to know what I’m up to all the time’. He points out that Google is probably not that interested in my morning flu jab and 4pm trip to Specsavers, which is rude.
Perhaps the answer is a halfway house between us both: one of those lovely National Trust calendars that you hang on the kitchen wall, the type my poor mother gets given at least six of every Christmas. Or maybe 2023 is the year when I’ll finally get with the program and go digital, instead of stubbornly refusing my phone’s suggestion to ‘Add this appointment to Google calendar’ every time the notification pings.
More likely though, I will just carry on living like a poor man’s Samuel Pepys, brandishing my biro when anyone suggests a meet-up and explaining to Sam that I don’t know whether I’m free next Thursday evening because I’m too tired to go upstairs and fetch my diary.
Guess I’ll just pop in a weekly ‘Have a fight over shared calendar’ slot to 2023 now.