Anyone still use a birthday book?

24 Feb Anyone still use a birthday book?

As you may recall February is one of two clusters of birthdays that our family has each year.  In the February cluster we have Jacob (who will tell anyone that will listen) is first, followed by Gabi then myself.  So we have LOTS going on in the lead up to these special days not to mention all the other things going on in our busy lives.

Historically, I always used a diary – a small handbag sized diary with a week to view – and I am sure at some stage I had one of those old school birthday books full of messy entries.

Back in the late 90’s whilst working a full time desk job I started to rely heavily on my office outlook calendar but found weekends and personal items being forgotten so I was using both the old diary AND outlook – hello double up and confusion.

BI (Before iPhone) I had a mobile with a calendar with reminder functions so I started using that, but still I relied on the old paper one because I never managed to get everything updated into the phone.

Then smart phones changed everything…

There are a ton of apps out there and one our family has started to use this year is COZI.

You can access it on your PC or phone and it has shared calendars, lists and more.  You can put everything in there from school schedules to chore lists AND you can share it with members of your family.  This is the function we are enjoying the most so far…that common sentence in our home “I will have to check we are free and get back to you” should become a thing of the past, as husband and I can both check our family schedule and know if we are free on the spot.

I was easily able to get all our schedules set up to kick off the year and included lots of birthdays – with reminders that can be customised as to not only WHO gets reminded but also WHEN and HOW OFTEN….lots of reminders going to husband for my birthday 🙂

The Filing Fairies are of the school of thought that we are all unique and that no one single solution will work for all people, which is the basis of our FileOsophy solutions for all walks of life (business, family and individuals) so Cozi and its many customisable features sat well with me.

There are a ton of other organising apps out there. A few worth a mention;

Evernote

Remember the milk

There are also countless free apps specifically for Birthday organising if you are out to replace an old tired birthday book.

How do you stay on top of birthdays?  Excel? Calendar? Diary?  Comment and share with us what you are using and why it works for you?

Have a magical day

Mara