Guest post series - 'Filohax' No. 22 - Paul

Thanks very much again to Paul for this twenty-second instalment of his wonderful guest post series.
You can find all of the 'Filohax' posts here.       There is an index of all the previous Filohax posts here

 

Why tech needs analogue 

 

Tech has taken over the world, so why do we need analogue back ups? Well recently in the space of one day I heard of two tech fails where analogue did, or could have saved the day:

1) Smartphone calendar 

Our niece was on holiday in Crete, and while there she took a booking for a presentation in two weeks' time, in the UK, adding it right into the smartphone calendar app.

She came back from holiday, and several days later a colleague happened to call her about this particular presentation... which they said was to be at 12.30pm. Something didn't sound right, as she had already booked another appointment shortly after 12.30pm elsewhere - so she checked her phone calendar for the booking she had taken while on holiday...it showed 12.30pm, but she had originally written it into her smartphone as '10.30am' - the app had changed the appointment back to Eastern European time!!!!

2) Password back up 

Our workplace's I.T. system is getting migrated from being supported by one contractor to a new one. However, when a colleague (who is responsible for exam results) was given special early permission to use the new system, all of her password 'autofills' had disappeared... leaving her to hunt through cupboards for work books with the written down passwords, eventually finding them in a diary from 2018?!!

I'm guessing that us Filofax/analogue planner users would never fall into these traps - problem number 1 would be solved by writing everything that happens at least into a physical dated 'brain dump' prior to adding it to any type of calendar, and problem number 2 would be simply to turn to tab 'P' for passwords in your storage binder.

 

I bet we all have a few 'analogue saves the day' stories?    

Guest post series - 'Filohax' No.4 - Paul

Thanks again to Paul for this fourth instalment of his guest post series. 

You can find all the 'Filohax' posts here.  There is an index of all the previous Filohax posts here

Filohax: Time for a change

In my quest to ditch more and more 'Tech' from my life, I've stumbled upon another addition to my trusty Winchester workhorse - an analogue time piece! A little back story - I ditched wrist watches in the early 2000's and the recent craze for Apple digital watches leaves me cold. 

Probably like millions of others, I've come to reach for my 'smart' phone when I need to clock the time, which inevitably leads to a quick look at the news / Facebook / YouTube (you know the drill). 

Well, I use my Filofax to plan my day and organise on a minute to minute, hour to hour basis and recently caught myself flipping open the Winchester and simultaneously reaching for the phone to check the time. I suddenly thought, 'I need to start wearing a watch again,' so had a new battery put in an old Calvin Klein but it only stayed on my wrist for a day - which is when the light bulb moment happened - 'I wonder how I could get a watch into my Filofax?' (don't you think that three quarters of a new innovation is in asking yourself the right question first?!). 

The logical answer was then to take the wrist bands off, and use velcro to attach the face to the narrow slither of leather visible when the Filofax is open flat with inserts. 

Already I've probably cut down my smartphone consumption by 25%!

Analogue Vs Digital.... or vice versa!

The on-going discussion about the pros and cons of using analogue or digital will continue for ever... well as long the lights don't go out and your digital device doesn't run out of electrons to power it! 

I like to think I'm not in either camp, I use both, using the strengths of either system to overcome the weaknesses of the other. The 'best of both worlds' as it were. 

I try not to duplicate a complete planning system in both although as you will see if you are using both it's hard to avoid that. 

If you are a 'purist' you might be only using digital apps for all your planning and task reminders, but you are very unlikely to be reading this blog post?  

Or may be you only use paper planners for all of your planning and task reminders and note taking... and we love you for accepting that method as the only way of doing things. Why not!

Going exclusive or only partial digital isn't as straight forward as you might think, there are host of different apps for different aspects of your digital planning needs, calendars, note taking apps, task reminders, project planning, etc. etc. and the outputs of these can be private to just you or shareable in some way or form with your partner assuming they are using a similar app. 

The sharing with others seems to me to be the main reason for retaining a digital calendar. It's often a requirement of some work places that you share your calendar with your team/line manager as it makes booking meetings easier. 

Alison and I have access to each others main calendars without getting out of our office chairs or speaking to each other! It helps avoiding clashes of dates when booking things etc. We both have additional calendars as I'm sure Alison doesn't need to know about the schedule for Free for All Friday posts on Philofaxy, and I don't need to know about her book blogging schedule! 

As I'm sure I've mentioned before I do use Apple Reminders for routine tasks that are repeating in nature in either regular or irregular intervals. The advantage of this is that when you tick off a task as being completed, the system will automatically reset itself for the next time and you don't have to work out the date in 9 weeks time or what ever it is. 

However, I do bring together in my organiser these routine tasks and my many 'one off's' that don't get put on my digital app. That way I have all of my tasks for the next week or two in 'one place' on my paper organiser diary insert. Noted down on their appropriate days. 

At least once a week I look at the schedule list of my reminders and I transfer them across to my paper insert. 

I also cross-check my appointments at the same time so that those are in-sync between the digital and paper world.

I only have one paper diary to keep up to date. It is too easy for multiple planners to get out of sync if you using more than one (as I used to do!) 

There are plenty of You Tube videos discussing 'Analog vs Digital' take a look. 

Which camp are you in? 

Everything New is Old Again

I'm feeling familial guilt about my return to analog. I recently visited my father during a brief hospital stay, and while we were in the room, a nurse practitioner came in and asked my Dad what medications/dosages he had taken thus far that day. He pulled out a small, colorful Palm device and showed her his medication list on the screen.

Later, I asked my mother for her hotel room number, and guess what I wrote it down in -- a Filofax. Shouldn't my "greatest generation" Dad be using paper and I, a cusp-of-baby-boomer-gen-x'er, be using the Palm?

A question for the ages.