Yes, I am a sick man and, yes, I probably have a problem.

I’m in the process of making my calendar for next year. I make my own because 1) I’m picky and 2) it’s more fun than doing real work but leaves me with the impression I’ve actually been working.

During university I had a bad habit of forgetting assignments and meetings and accidentally double booking events. To try to cure myself of this, for many years I tried to use calendars of various sorts. I remember Kansas State University used to publish a school year calendar that may (or may not) have been nicknamed “the Annual” which, I’ll grant you, is a bit like naming it the “school year calendar thingee”. It was a spiral-bound book with one week on two pages. Every year I tried using it but after a month or so abandoned it.

The “school year calendar thingee” had two fatal flaws: 1) spiral-bound and 2) the school itself hogged the days. Basically, the school pre-filled important events, including sports, and it was common for at least one day a week to be completely full before I’d had a chance to enter my information.

I then went through a series of calendars of various sizes but all of them had at least one fatal flaw and I never found them particularly useful.

Then, after I came to Japan, the JET Programmed gave us some small planners that had a full week on each page and included lots of useful information such as medical terms and basic legal advice–which could be summed up as “don’t be stupid” and “Even if you are stupid don’t do stupid stuff”.

I used that planner a lot and, to this day, still kind of miss it.

Eventually I realized I needed a monthly overview and a weekly schedule. This led to me making my own monthly calendars and, eventually, my own bible-sized inserts for a Filofax. (Yes, I actually made them from scratch. I wasted time to make time. Something like that.)

No birthdays here, just a couple holidays.

Making my own let me add birthdays and pictures of the family.

All my girls in one place several years ago.

My unoriginal cover decoration as to put various versions of “Front” and “Back” on them.

This is the character I used to represent “front”.

Eventually I even abandoned those. My new planner is a system that involves an electronic calendar on my computer (and which I hopefully will be able to sync to my phone) and a 12 days per page paper calendar that covers the entire year. The 12 days format lets me see what’s coming, but still leaves me room to write.

I’ll probably abandon that in a couple years, too. It’s already in its second incarnation.