Permanent Calendar: What do you think?
My Beloved’s new position comes with lots of responsibilities, meetings and travel. That means an increase in work for me on the home front. Though we scheduled our time in advance there were several unexpected events in January and every one resulted in a change in our scheduling. There were days where we were snowed in and without power so we tossed calendars aside and went into survival mode. On those days we lamented that no matter how hard we tried to lead a scheduled life we were living an unscheduled one.
A Short History of the Modern Calendar
Since their invention, calendars have been used to fix the occurrence of seasonal events like harvests or religious festivals. Most of the oldest calendars were lunar calendars, based on the time interval from one new moon to the next—a so-called lunation. Unfortunately, the cycles of the sun and moon do not synchronize well. A lunar year (consisting of 12 lunar cycles, or lunations, each 29½ days long) is only 354 days, 8 hours long; a solar year lasts about 365¼ days.
Despite its widespread use, the Gregorian calendar has a number of weaknesses. It cannot be divided into equal halves or quarters; the number of days per month is haphazard; and months or even years may begin on any day of the week. — The Gregorian Calendar
A Short History of the Modern Calendar Video
hat tip to IzaakMak
Though the length of the Gregorian year exceeds the true astronomical measurement by twenty-six seconds, it will be about thirty-five centuries before the result will be an error of a day before that time arrives mankind will have time to devise a mode of correction. Since Gregory XIII, many other proposals for calendar reform have been made, but none has been permanently adopted.
Using computer programs and mathematical formulas, Richard Conn Henry, an astrophysicist in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and Steve H. Hanke, an applied economist in the Whiting School of Engineering, have created a new calendar in which each new 12-month period is identical to the one which came before, and remains that way from one year to the next in perpetuity. — Time for a Change? Overhauling the Calendar
Hanke, who has helped seven countries introduce new currencies, estimates the change could save “roughly $130 billion” merely by decreasing the chance of interest-calculation errors resulting from incorrectly counting the number of days in a given month.
That modern calendar would simplify financial calculations and eliminate the “rip-off factor.” To determine how much interest accrues for a wide variety of instruments — bonds, mortgages, swaps, forward rate agreements, etc. — day counts are required. The current calendar contains complexities and anomalies that create day count problems. In consequence, a wide range of conventions have evolved in an attempt to simplify interest calculations. For U.S. government bonds, the interest earned between two dates is based on the ratio of the actual number of days elapsed to the actual number of days between the interest payments (actual/actual). For convenience, U.S. corporates, municipals and many agency bonds employ the 30/360 day count convention. These different conventions create their own complications, inefficiencies and arbitrage opportunities. — Changing Times
Planning to Make the Best Use of Your Time
Scheduling is the process by which you look at the time available to you, and plan how you will use it to achieve the goals you have identified. By using a schedule properly, you can:
- Understand what you can realistically achieve with your time.
- Plan to make the best use of the time available.
- Leave enough time for things you absolutely must do.
- Preserve contingency time to handle ‘the unexpected’.
- Minimize stress by avoiding over-commitment to yourself and others.
Discussion
- How much time management scheduling do you do?
- How often do you find yourself unable to meet your scheduled time targets?
- What’s your response to the Hanke-Henry Permanent Calendar?
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I generally do very little time managment. I have my timetable for college and that’s as far as my scheduling usually extends to. I’m actually just quite useless at keeping to schedules – found that out after several years of failing miserably at study timetables. When I do try to focus on getting things done, I make general goals like ‘I will write this essay this week’ and ‘I will read that poem next week’. Only way for me.
Yet despite that, I am the type of person that if I say I’ll be there at a certain time, I will be there. I cannot stand being more than five minutes late for something and like to be places early so for getting places I keep to a tight schedule, but for doing things I don’t.
What’s your response to the Hanke-Henry Permanent Calendar?
– Call me crazy, but I like a bit of a messed up calendar like what we use. Where’d the fun be if every month had the same number days? Things would get boring – plus I wouldn’t be able to laugh at my friend for only having a birthday every four years XD
Idle Emma,
Thanks for commenting and sharing your experience with scheduling. I’ve always been more organized than disorganized and have usually been able to stick to the schedules I create.
I’m comfortable with the Gregorian calendar simply because it’s the only one I have any experience of. To account for extra time, Hanke and Henry drop leap years and instead create a “leap week” at the end of December every five or six years. This extra week, dubbed “Xtr”, would adjust for seasonal drift while keeping the 7-day cycle on track.
There are enormous economic advantages to the proposed calendar. These benefits come because the new calendar is identical every year… except that, every five or six years, there is a one-week long “Mini-Month,” called “Xtr (or Extra),” at the end of December. “Xtr (or Extra) Week” brings the calendar into sync with the seasonal change as the Earth circles the Sun. Years would proceed with clockwork regularity, with no annual re-jiggering of schedules required. Each day would occupy the same position as it had the previous year and would in the next. Because Gregorian calendar anomalies make a muddle of interest-calculating conventions. Sunday-only Christmas and New Year’s holidays would also eliminate their mid-week appearances when the whole economy collapses for two weeks.
I’m in favor of calendar reform and adoption of the permanent calendar.
I used write down key deadlines /tasks. I do that less. One of the reasons is that I don’t carry a little appointment book. I don’t have a cellphone or ipod to do this. So I use Outlook. The current job I have does not require I run a dept., whereas in previous years I had to organize alot of stuff. Or had a job where the commute was long. So didn’t get home until 7:30 pm which meant very little evening time. (And leaving house for work at …5:15 am at that time in life!)
Things are quite different now. I’m almost too relaxed now and am forgetting certain things. So have to do something about this.
One thing that hasn’t changed: I get into work about half an hr. earlier than start time or more. It allows me to slide into the day with my coffee and not begin stressed out.
We don’t have cell phone reception so we use day planners for keeping track of appointments. As there is no public transit where we live and we have a single vehicle, we have to plan in advance in order to actually get where we are going in time to be on time for any appointment. Lately, we have had a lot of appointments to structure our life around and that will be the way our life is structured for the next few years. I suppose you could say we are having difficulty making the adjustment but I do expect that things will improve as we do adapt.
Hi TT,
Lots of interesting calendar info.
Time management has always been a problem for me. I marvel at those who seem to able to handle the many consumers of their time. My schedule, like those of many, is often ruined minutes into my day as my attention is drawn to the latest fire drill.
Despite this, I do still plan, because the exercise of setting a schedule does help to distinguish the critical tasks from the less important ones.
Re the Hanke calendar, that $130 billion claim seems overstated, but a savings of a fraction of that amount would still merit consideration of his plan.
Ray
Hi Ray,
As you have read my post and the comments you know that I do employ goal setting, scheduling and time management practices. I always have and I think that was rooted in my childhood as there were many of us and my mother had to schedule time in order to get all critical tasks accomplished and be sure we all got to where we were going on time.
I don’t know if the $130 billion claim is accurate or not but I tend to believe it is. I have read that the adoption of the permanent calendar the world over would take about as much money to adopt as the Y2 incident cost. I do agree that even a fraction of that figure would still mean this calendar reform was worth pursuing given global economic interconnectedness that prevails.
Fortunately, TT, I’ve rarely had to live by a calendar or schedule, since my life has mostly been comprised of free time. I did have a schedule of sorts when I coached gymnastics, having to arrive at practice and be at meets at certain given times, but those were quite repetitive and easy to memorize. I do almost everything in my life spontaneously or by whim. I suppose the one exception right now is posting an aphorism every Wednesday, although I always give myself the leeway to skip it, if I feel like it.
There was a time in my life that was unstructured and then I could be spontaneous like you describe. That’s not my current reality now and I look back on that time with nostalgia. I’m sure that same urge to be free of time constraints is why we value holidays and vacations so highly. The irony is that some schedule the time they are on vacation down to the last minute. My idea of a vacation is enjoying do nothing time.
My time was more unstructured during the times I was unemployed. I had to truly discipline myself on the job hunt and also put some of that time, learning a new skill which was blogging! :)
Even on the job, I’ve been more “loose” than other folks. I just try to keep general deadlines in mind and work through the day with unexpected interuptions (from clients), etc.
Most definitely I would have to become way more organized if I had children.
I’m beginning to think my grand plans for becoming organized in 2012 may need rethinking. Perhaps I should just set 3 priorities every day and make sure I accomplish them.
Hi timethief,
My approach to time management used to be to do as much as possible. That didn’t work on the long run! I find it quite challenging to use my time efficiently. There are so many distractions, and, in theory, blogging has so many “demands.” I have my work priorities each day and then work around that. I’m sure to take good breaks for relaxation.
Gosh, I don’t know where I’m at with the calendar changes. What about going back to the lunar calendar?
Hi Sandra,
I lost my balance completely last month. As for Plan A everything went sideways. The second time the power went out for two days we each read a book when we weren’t hauling water and wood. Whenever I put the book down I was aware that I was worrying about what wasn’t getting done. The setting three goals for the day approach worked well for me in the past and is what I revert to (Plan B).
P.S. A lunar year is only 354 days, 8 hours long. That means it’s even more problematic than the Gregorian calender is.
I love the idea of a perpetuity calendar. I always go back to that old poem “30 days have September, April, June and November and the rest have 31!
I learned when I first had children that planning was pipe dream. I gave up on sticking to a schedule early on, learning to go with the flow and then life became so much easier. I do use a daytimer and now that my kids are in college, life has gotten a bit more predictable. Oh, who am I kidding…Hahaha!
Great post!
Hi there,
It’s good to hear that I’m not the only one who favors the perpetual calendar. :)
Now that it looks like Mr O may have a job (YIPPEE!!) and he has his licence, we can get back to scheduling. We were discussing it the other night in fact.
Now I don’t need to take him for driving practice every night, I can get back to the gym on a regular basis. We have Tuesday nights swimming and the kids are back in school.
Tomoorw I am stopping off at Officeworks to get paper and ink for the home printer and while I am there I am buying a wall planner so we can keep track of everyone’s commitments.
The last 8 months have been a lot of chaos, so now, at the start of the new year, it is time to organise and schedule!
Your last 8 months have been life changing months and it’s good to hear things are settling down now for you. re: Mr. O getting a job – Great news! My attempts to organize and scheule were completely derailed so I went to square one. Best wishes to you.