Day Runner provides year-end perspective for busy mom

I’m no technophobe. I tweet daily about my activities with the kids. I stalk like-minded strangers on Pinterest. I have an unhealthy obsession with playing Words With Friends 2 with my sister who lives 5,000 miles away.

But I still love my Day Runner planner.

In the ’90s, Day Runner planners were cool. They came in a multitude of colors and styles and were the symbol of a busy college kid, juggling classes, a job and so many social engagements that I needed to track them in my Week-at-a-Glance and Month-at-a-Glance calendars. Like a miniature three-ring binder, I could take class notes in one section and write down phone numbers in another.

Then came the Blackberry, which, of course, begat the smartphone, and planners faded away for most everyone except me.

My friends transitioned seamlessly. They peck away at their touchscreens as we make dinner plans and schedule the next PTA meeting. I uncap my pen, unsnap my calendar and start to scrawl. The looks of pity and confusion people give me make me feel like a dinosaur. But I am undeterred. The muscle memory of having jotted down appointments helps me to remember where I need to be each day.

While I do appreciate a Google calendar reminder of next week’s lunch plans, I prefer to see that appointment in context with everything else going on in my life.

With the month laid out before me, I can see if one more visit to a fun fair or museum exhibit can be squeezed in between baseball practice and swimming lessons, or if there will be too many late nights this week for my little one to wake up cheerfully for school.

There are other advantages, too. My phone slips from my clumsy fingers and hits the ground far too often. There is no chance of losing data from my hard-copy calendar when I drop it. Plus it’s easier to plan a surprise outing for the family without digital copies of my plans syncing to all our devices.

The calendar app on my iPhone reduces each appointment to a tiny dot on a calendar that needs to be clicked to be seen. With a busy life of juggling work and family, some days end up with a dozen dots. How does that help?

But this time of year as I recopy birthdays and anniversaries from my 2017 calendar onto this year’s grids, I think there must be a more efficient way to carry over these reminders of annual dates. And, of course, there is.

Yet, it’s comforting to flip back through those little tabbed pages and reflect on all our comings and goings.

Like a time capsule, I can look back on the birthday parties and doctor’s visits, vacations and girls’ nights that comprise a year in my life. And perhaps that’s the most important reason I keep my Day Runner around: to plan for a little extra perspective at the end of each year.

“She Speaks” is a weekly column by women writers of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Reach Donica Kaneshiro at dkaneshiro@staradvertiser.com.