LivSimpl

How to set up automatic reminders of your new year’s resolutions

If rules are made to be broken, then resolutions are made to be forgotten. No matter how good my intentions are, I seem to fall off the wagon. And it’s usually sooner than later. Shameful, I know.

Sometimes it’s because of laziness but other times it’s because I simply forget. Fortunately, it’s easy to send yourself reminders with Google Calendar.

Set up a new calendar called Reminders. Using that calendar, schedule days you want reminders to do things. For example, if you’ve resolved to write your grandma a letter once a week (a great idea – not only does it communicate with a loved one, but make a copy of the letters to keep as a personal history) schedule an appointment for Monday titled “Write Granny” using your Reminders calendar.

Of course, you can set each appointment to repeat weekly so you don’t have to repeat the process 52 times.

Repeat with your weekly and monthly resolutions.

I’d also suggest establishing “check-up” reminders. For example, if you want to read War and Peace, perhaps break it up into sections. So by the end of week one you want to be on page 125, week two: 250, etc. So on the first Saturday set an appointment that says, “War and Peace page 125″. Continue to do this for the remaining Saturdays until you should be done with your resolution. It’s a much more manageable way to approach a big task like this. Knowing you only have to read 125 pages a week is much less daunting than being reminded to “Read War and Peace.”

Once your schedule is established, go into your Google Calendar settings, select your Reminder calendar, Notifications then select Daily Agenda. Ta-da! All your resolutions will be there happily waiting for you in your Inbox each morning making sure you don’t forget to write Granny and tell her about your latest adventures.

Oh, and if you want to keep your calendar looking clutter-free you can uncheck your Reminders calendar (see picture) to hide those appointments from view. They’re still there, you just won’t have to look at them all day. Then again, that might not be a bad thing.

Do you have any other suggestions on how to remember your resolutions? Please leave word in the comments.

LivSimpl

Thursday, December 27th, 2007 at 11:42 pm and is filed under Exercise, Holidays, Organization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.