Long Overdue Confession

What in the world has happened to me? I come here today to reluctantly admit something, it’s something that I have been doing for a few weeks now. It’s hard to admit and in a former life, I would have called someone that has fallen the way I have weak, wimpy and low-tech. This is extremely difficult but I have to do it, so bear with me.

Hi, my name is Jim and I use a paper based day planner.

There, I said it. It gets easier to admit as time passes and I hope I’m on my way to embracing this newfound low-tech tool. Maybe my age is catching up with me, maybe I long for the simpler days, maybe it’s not as bad as what I make it out to be. I have used a palm pilot for years, I have had several different ones, but I have never really had a need to track my schedule in a calendar. I use it mainly for contacts and other notes, as well as having a Bible on it.

Mary and I have been mocked in the past for our apparent geekiness in this area. If the fact that we have been known to beam data between our palm pilots is geeky, then so be it. We have lived on that side and now we are as low tech as you can be, as far as day planners. I used to sync up daily, but last year, when my computer when down in flames, I got out of the habit of syncing up. Even now, I still don’t sync up to my computer, I just have to always keep the palm pilot charged up, so I don’t lose what’s on there.

Recently, Mary announced to me that she is giving up her palm pilot for a paper based planner, she even found a website that let’s you print all kinds of different pages, like calendar, to-do lists etc. I watched her get all wrapped up in that, while silently mocking her low-tech-ness. She then ventured out to the local well known office supply store and bought a binder. That’s when I broke down.

I called her while she was at the store and asked her to buy me a binder, I was in. She then made me all the pages I wanted and here I am. The whole thing cost less than 10 bucks. A few days later, I went to the local big box, well known, named after me discount store and was subsequently seduced by the vast array of pens and pencils. Upon leaving the store, I ended up spending more on my new pen and pencil than I spent on the binder itself.

Now, after a few weeks, I am ready to admit that I’m a recovering former palm pilot user who is enjoying low tech. The bottom line is that I’m getting too busy to rely on my brain to keep track of commitments I make days or weeks in advance, so this is becoming more valuable all the time. I still use my palm pilot for contacts and some notes that I still reference.

My final confession, I have my eye on a nice fancy binder and it looks appealing, but man, that’s gonna take some real money, so I’m saving up, it even has a pocket for my cell phone and palm pilot, however I still need to prove to myself that this way of life will last for me before diving too far into it.