There’s a calendar on my kitchen wall. It cost €4.50 from a bookstore clearance bin. Cats in baskets. Very tacky.
I write on it with a pen that lives in the junk drawer. Doctor’s appointments. Birthdays. “Dinner at Tom’s.” That sort of thing.
Every few days, someone notices it and asks why I don’t just use my phone.
I’m never sure how to answer.
It started as an accident
Three years ago, I missed a dentist appointment. It was in my phone. I got the notification. I swiped it away because I was doing something else. Then I completely forgot.
Sitting in the waiting room a week later, rescheduled and slightly ashamed, I thought about how this kept happening. Not just appointments—birthdays I’d meant to acknowledge, deadlines that snuck up, plans I’d made and then double-booked.
Everything was in my phone. Everything was organized. And somehow, I still kept losing track.
On my way home, I passed a stationery shop and bought a wall calendar on impulse. Thought I’d try it for a month.
That was three years ago.
What the paper does differently
Here’s the thing about digital calendars: they’re invisible until they’re not.
Your appointments exist somewhere behind glass. You don’t see them unless you open the app. They send notifications, sure—but notifications are just more noise in the noise. Easy to dismiss. Easy to forget.
A paper calendar sits there. On the wall. All month.
I see my upcoming week every time I walk into the kitchen. Not because I chose to check, but because it’s just there. Tuesday’s thing is written in blue ink. Saturday’s thing is squeezed into the corner because I ran out of space.
It’s not a better system. It’s just a more visible one. And for me, visible matters.
The ritual of writing
There’s something else, too.
When I add something to my phone, I tap a few buttons and it’s done. When I add something to the paper calendar, I have to find the pen, walk to the wall, and physically write it down.
That sounds like extra steps. It is extra steps. But those extra steps make me remember.
I can tell you, right now, that I have a call next Thursday at 2 PM. Not because I just checked. Because I remember writing “Call - Sarah” in the little Thursday box three days ago. The act of writing lodged it somewhere.
I forget digital entries. I remember the ones I wrote by hand. I don’t know why. Maybe nobody does.
What I still use my phone for
I’m not a purist. Some things stay digital.
Work meetings go in the work calendar. Shared events with other people—Google Calendar, because that’s where everyone else is. Anything that needs a reminder alarm, because paper can’t vibrate at me.
But personal stuff? The appointments that are just mine? The birthdays I want to remember without a notification telling me to?
Those go on the wall.
The cats are growing on me
The calendar with the cats was supposed to be temporary. A test. Something I’d replace with a nicer one once I knew this system worked.
That was three years ago. I’m on my third cat calendar now.
I could buy something elegant. Something with minimalist design and heavy paper stock. But at this point, the tackiness feels intentional. It’s a calendar, not a statement. It’s supposed to be functional, not beautiful.
Although—and I’m slightly embarrassed to admit this—the December cat is pretty cute. Orange tabby in a Santa hat. I smiled when I flipped to it.
What people don’t understand
When I tell people about the paper calendar, they often respond with their own system. “I use Notion.” “Google Calendar syncs across all my devices.” “I have this app that…”
I nod along. Their systems probably work great for them.
But here’s what I’ve realized: the best organizational tool is the one you actually use. Not the most powerful one. Not the most sophisticated one. The one you’ll actually look at.
For me, that’s a €4.50 calendar with cats on it.
I look at it every day. I know what’s coming. I don’t miss appointments anymore.
That’s it. That’s the whole system.
January’s calendar is already on my desk. Dogs this time. Might be living dangerously.