Planning Behind

Even though I've had a smartphone for a year, I don't tend to use the calendar function much. I mean, I use it sometimes when I need to look at a visual representation of a calendar and I'm not at home or at the office (where they are conveniently hung on the wall). But I don't use it to keep track of appointments and important dates. I just prefer to write things down, I think because it gives me a better chance of remembering them.

For the past several years I have been using a Moleskine combination planner book/notebook. These come in several variations; I prefer the kind that shows the week vertically on the left pages, and has ruled lines on the right pages to make notes about whatever I want. For example, this is how I keep track of my online bill payments each month, just as a kind of backup to the confirmation emails.

This year, I didn't remember that I needed a new book until I came back to work on January 3rd. Last year I think I bought one at Porter Square Books, but I haven't been over that way in some time, and it's way out of the way for me to go there after work. I kept meaning to stop by the Barnes & Noble in the Prudential Center, which is more or less on my way home, but with the ridiculous weather and the days I haven't even come into the office and the days I've had to head home from work early to take care of the dog, it just kept slipping back on the priority list.

I finally made it there one night last week, and of course I was way too late: anything calendar-related that remained in the store was marked down to at least half-price and piled on a small table, but there was very little left in general. Moleskine doesn't seem to sell its products directly online, but I figured other places must. A little searching got me to the Barnes & Noble online store, where I hadn't visited in several years. Not only did they still have the notebook I wanted in stock, but it was still half-price. A couple of CDs I'd been wanting to get (yeah, I still buy CDs) got me over the free-shipping threshold.

At this point, a month into the year, I would have preferred to find this item in a local store, but then what's a few more days to wait until it arrives?