Planning is the New Normal
By Bhavin Shah
When you were a kid, it’s likely that your life didn’t involve much more planning than which cereal to eat while watching Saturday morning cartoons. Once upon a time families might have a few big events like birthday parties or outings on a wall calendar, but otherwise life was pretty easygoing. Kids would run outside for hours of unstructured play, and the grownups would casually drop by friends’ houses for impromptu get-togethers.
Things have changed.
Now the family calendar has migrated off the wall and onto our mobile devices. Families, sports teams, school bands and even neighbors share calendars that quickly fill our week with events. Most urban parents will tell you the scheduled play date has long since replaced pickup games of baseball on the sandlot. Busy single professionals have to schedule around deadlines and hectic social lives just to get together with friends for a beer after work. Spontaneity is almost unheard of. Planning is the new normal.
Gmail has recognized that a lot of you do your planning in email and will highlight date and time in a message, allowing you to add it to your calendar with just a click. Facebook’s acquisition of What’s App shows how much attention is on mobile apps that allow you to communicate with groups of friends and stay connected without using expensive data plans. This need for planning ahead has also been a boon to companies like Eventbrite and Meetup that facilitate event planning on an even bigger scale.
We’re more connected than ever (up to 18.5 hours per day for those who use a smartphone for work) and we’re busier than ever. So in a week that might have you chatting with your dental hygienist, calling your mechanic about the noise your car is making, or emailing the PTA president about next week’s fundraiser, it’s not surprising that you may need a little help remembering all their names.
When the weekend rolls around, the trend of scheduling free time starts to make a lot of sense. In the article “What Successful People Do On the Weekends”, Carolyn Cutrone cautions that parents, so consumed with their children’s activities, too often forget to schedule fun activities for themselves. Making time to exercise, indulge in a favorite hobby, or just grab a cup of coffee with a friend, is worth putting on your calendar.
Refresh is with you throughout your week, helping you remember the name of your mechanic, reminding you of upcoming dinner plans, and calling up your meetings for the next day. But we also make your downtime count by helping you recall the trip your friends took to Paris last month, or the course your golf partner checked in on Foursquare that you can’t wait to ask about. If planning is the new normal, it just makes sense to take a moment to make sure those plans are memorable.
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