How I use Chandler: Organizing my life as a new parent
April 4th, 2008 at 1:55 pm (1 month, 1 week ago) by Sheila Mooney under How I Use ChandlerSo for some time I have been meaning to blog about how I am using Chandler. As a member of the Chandler team, I had been dogfooding (to use an old term) and using the application for some time in a work environment. I shared a Product and Design collection with my team so we could keep track of design meetings and tasks people were working on. We also shared an Office Calendar for keeping track of shared meetings and PTO. I have always used various calendaring and task management systems within the organizations I have worked for but had never adopted anything for personal use. Of course this doesn’t mean I didn’t need such a system. I simply resigned myself to emailing myself reminders, leaving myself voicemails and carrying around scraps of paper with shopping lists. Yes, I am also one of those people with a “huge” inbox.
Last July my life changed dramatically with the birth of not one but two babies!
I started out with just a Twins Calendar
Needless to say, I was going to have to be much more organized than I ever was before. I decided to experiment with Chandler and created a collection called “Twins” believing that I would never have time to use it much. We had just released Preview so I wanted to get on board with Chandler somehow. I was so sleep deprived that I couldn’t remember anything. After several lengthy “on-hold sessions with the doctor’s office to double check the date and time of my next visit because I didn’t write it down”, I started keeping a simple calendar with my kids appointments. Having all these dates in Chandler was pretty handy. My husband travels frequently on business so I would email him the appointments so he could arrange his schedule to accompany me.
But, quickly, it grew into more than just a Calendar
As anybody with kids will know, you very quickly expand beyond doctor’s appointments to new parent meetings, support groups, playgroups and a variety of other outings to keep track of. As time went on, I began to build up an extensive list of tasks that I had to keep track of as well. As a new parent, there was a steady stream of things you needed to buy and projects you needed to tackle. This runs the gamut from investigating infant CPR courses to ordering diapers. I realized very quickly that I had few opportunities to do things and I needed to be efficient about it. I would keep shopping lists for various kids stores in the city so when I happened to be out (usually at the pediatrician), I could stop by and pick up the few things I needed. In the old days, I would make multiple trips to the grocery store preparing for a dinner party. The cost of forgetting something was really high and keeping this all in my head was impossible.
I started to put any and all kids related information in this collection. I buy baby supplies online so I keep a recurring diapers.com order and add to my list in the notes field as I see supplies running low. When it’s time to place my next order, I know that I won’t forget anything.
I used Chandler when I was looking for a nanny. I kept dates of phone and in-person interviews and lists of associated tasks. I manage packing lists for trips, questions for my next doctor’s appointment and an endless stream of errands. I belong to a “Parents of Multiples” club that has bi-yearly consignment sales and a very active mailing list on which there are product and activity recommendations.
Why Chandler Worked For Me
It’s true that I could be using other applications to track all these things but there are several things I like about Chandler specifically. Since I am not married to any particular system, I like the way Chandler allows me to put my stuff in the application but doesn’t force me to process it in a certain way. I will sit down, use the quick entry field and just add a whole bunch of stuff and I like the fact that I don’t necessarily have to add any more info, specify next actions or make any decisions at all. I can leave it in the Later section forever! I suppose in some ways Chandler can accommodate my lack of organization. Getting stuff out of my head and into one place was a big step for me and over time has allowed me to create a system a my own pace.
Because I have very limited time, I use alarms for everything and set them for times when I know I will have time to act on something. I set alarms to call about appointments and activities for first thing in the morning. For items I buy or research online, I get pinged after the kids go to bed. The alarms in Chandler are not just pop ups, when an alarm goes off, the item moves to the top of the NOW section in Chandler.
When I sit down at my computer, I can easily scan my NOW section and see what things I can be working on.
Almost every night when I come home from work my nanny mentions something she wants me to buy or investigate. Now I have a place for all that. My Twins collection has expanded to include general family related events and activities.
Sharing with my Husband
Currently, I am managing my Chandler Twins collection independently. I email my spouse an event or a task. Although he doesn’t use Chandler Desktop, I see many ways in which we could collaborate together via the web UI. We have been working on a quick entry widget which is basically a portable web UI that can sit in a Web page. If he had the quick entry widget installed, he could use it to add things to my task list directly rather than telling me verbally like he does today. He wouldn’t need to log into the Hub and could simply plug this widget into tools he is already using ie: iGoogle. Ideally I would love enable collaboration with him via a widget that shares a single item or all items in a collection. He might also like to receive summary reports over email of the changes I have made and the new stuff I have added to the collection.
Wish List
The one feature that I wish I had more of is integration with my iPhone. Obviously, when I am out running errands I am not at my computer. It would be handy for me to easily bring up that shopping list when I am out at the grocery store. My current solution for that is to share my collection and use the Hub to access it via my iPhone from the browser. This is not ideal of course but it’s a workaround solution. This crystalized for me that if we want people to use Chandler as their trusted system for information, it’s important they be able to get at the data when and where they need it.
I would have never predicted that what started out as a simple calendar has now turned into an essential repository of information that I rely on every day.
