Online diary is a ball and chain – give me back my old wall calendar

I was assured the digital route would facilitate an orderly rhythm of family life.

Reminders would tip me off so I would no longer be taken by surprise.

With all the family’s activities in one place, there would no longer be double booking confusion and the resulting tetchy, “What? I’m out for pints/at book club tonight, I told you this three weeks ago”, conversations at breakfast.

I liked our traditional paper calendar we used to have on the wall even if I was always forgetting to put ­anything in it.

These days my husband manages his digital calendar, and all the kids’ sports stuff goes in there, and I write down what is happening in my diary.

I finally agreed to be dragged into the modern age with a shared Google diary because the uptick in engagements after the pandemic lull was getting harder to keep track of and I had dropped the ball a few times.

It would make life less complicated, I was told.

Two months later and I want out. It stresses me having to say in advance what I will be doing.

And instead of a zen atmosphere, it has created a race to get in first.

I found myself booking up slots, just in case I wanted to do something that day because if I don’t, my husband might get there first with tennis or something.

And so we were into this ridiculous situation of sending emails declining or approving social engagements with one of us sitting upstairs and the other in the kitchen.

With my desk diary I don’t feel the need to fill it up in advance, unlike the digital one – perhaps this is partly why people are planning so much in advance.

When I ask our Generation Z babysitter if he is free he always has to whip out his phone to check.

Nothing is spur of the moment. Even the gym visits are recorded.

And I’m not making this up but my five-year-old just received an invitation to a classmate’s birthday party in Jump Zone for September 9.

That play centre in Sandyford, Dublin, is insanely busy but the parents also know if they don’t get the b-day lodged early in all those Google calendars, chances are half the class will have made plans.

But with all this looking to the future, how can we enjoy the present?

I’ve never read The Power of Now from spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle. I got it as a present twice – both times swiftly re-gifted – but next time I will hang on to it.

Tolle maintains only through the present moment do you have access to the power of life itself and after a few months of organising our family life electronically, I feel the need for this kind of wisdom.

And instead of saving time it feels like extra faffing.

With my analog method, it takes a few seconds, I write something in, I have a conversation with those around me to tally up the day, close the diary and get on with it.

I feel I own my time but with the digital calendar I need to invite ­people to accept or decline.

It takes me a while to put the details in and, anyway, apparently it’s not even quicker.

Last year the University of Tokyo found that note-taking in class was 25pc faster than using smartphones.

And the information went in more deeply; writing things down needs more brain activity, you are more likely to remember it.

And checking the calendar app is a time sucker.

I’ll be sussing out the time of my daughter’s cricket match – in the past I would have remembered this – and then squander 15 minutes trawling through shoes and clothes on the M&S Sparks app.

And do you not feel under the cosh with the reminders?

Whatever I set a reminder for is usually important enough to ­remember anyway.

For work I much prefer my desk diary. I cannot believe how many friends and family members have open diaries where colleagues and clients, and sometimes even pure strangers, can climb freely into.

What if you want to go get your hair blow-dried while you WFH?

You block out a few hours with ‘busy’, explains a friend, but I don’t know, does this not make it seem like your time is somebody else’s?

With a desk diary, at least it feels like you are working off your own clock.

A couple of years back, recruitment firm Walters People Ireland questioned 2,000 professionals and found 42pc felt workplace tech had an overall negative effect.

I feel this about the Google shared calendar. Life should not be this complicated and so I’m going back to analog.