I got a small desk calendar as advertising gift. It shows three months at once. I’m using this thing since the beginning of this year and I have to say that it turned out to be super useful. I’m happily surprised.
It sits on my desk next to my rightmost monitor. I’ve set it up so that I can see the last, current and next months. Each morning, I advance the “today window” or whatever its proper name is. This gives me a sense of what date we have today and which I will have forgotten half a minute later already. At most. However, it’s easily at hand by turning my head just a few degrees.
With the last month still showing, I had several occasions so far where a date in the past popped up in a meeting. I could easily tell when something happened, how long ago that was. Or how many days or weeks are left until we have to deliver something, etc.
In hindsight, this is absolutely no surprise at all. But I still find it fascinating. I’m now actually wondering why I never had something like that before. How could I live without that thing? Sure, I pulled up a calendar on my computer, ncal -w3 or so. But I always hated the inverted ncal output, necessary for showing week numbers, though. Having a paper calander right next to my screen at all times is sooooo much more handy.
So, do yourself a favor and think about whether such a desk calendar might be useful to you.
The only annoying thing is that the “today window” moves too easily. It slips down by its own. I reckon it wants me to regularly interact with it, so that I memorize the current date.