Review: Day Runner

To do or not to do, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of organization through an erasable wall calendar and color coded storage cases or to take arms against a sea of disorganization with my Gmail and my Outlook Calendar and by opposing end it. To be organized - to sleep, perchance to dream; and by a sleep to say only until the twins wake up at 5:30 AM, the heartache and a thousand natural shocks.

My apologies to Shakespeare, but the question of whether to use high or low-tech organizational tools to organize the lives of five human beings is a big one. I admit it's got nothing on Hamlet's ruminations on killing is uncle, but sadly it's more real to me than that.

Between Outlook and Gmail I have a lot of tools to help schedule our lives, but as a family we still rely mostly on our wall calendar. It's always easier to have something on the wall that we can point to and look at, without having to open a computer.

When the Parent Bloggers sent me Day Runner's Family Matters kit, which includes an erasable wall calendar, appointment book, erasable door reminders, color-coded activity folders, and storage cases, I was really looking forward to trying out more of these low-tech solutions to organizing my life.

I appreciate how color coding each member of the family could help a family with older kids, but right now my kids aren't involved in enough activities to warrant that kind of organization. Plus, we currently use a Shutterfly photo calendar with pictures that I like to look at. The erasable wall calendar is much larger and sort of bland and I am unwalling to offer it that much wall space in my kitchen.

The erasable door reminders are a great idea. Unfortunately, they don't work very well with our doorknobs, so we stopped using them after a few days.

The bottom line is that these tools seem to be perfect for someone who's not comfortable organizing their life online. I, however, am not that person. With the exception of my wall calendar, I like having my address book, work calendar, and other organizational stuff on my computer. The less paper there is, the better. Maybe I'll change my tune when my kids start bringing home papers and doing more than one activity at a time. Or maybe by then they'll be able to organize themselves. Perchance to dream.

Right now my organizational system (or lack of one) works for me. If you have kids that are involved in a lot of activities and you're looking to upgrade your organization system (and you have round doorknobs), check out Family Matters.