As ubiquitous as it has become to gift someone a candle, back in the day of trudging a mile uphill in the snow to and from school, it was just as common to gift someone a wall calendar, especially during the winter holidays. Wall calendars were fun to pick out and available practically everywhere you shopped. They could feature stunning art, humorous scenes and quotes, or shots from nature. Some even provided fundraising dollars for causes you valued.
But how often do you see a physical calendar on a wall in someone’s home anymore? And do wall calendars even have a place in the digital era? What does a wall calendar offer that its desktop or virtual version does not?
Well, for one thing, the wall calendar never moves on you. It is a reliable source of ground truth as to what is going on and when in your household. Wall calendars also have a number of other advantages you’ll read about in our story today.
As our focus for Around the House, With Artifcts this month shifts to everything that goes on your walls, we took a look around to gather some perspective on the value of wall calendars in modern times. We found some interesting and relatable perspectives that may just shift your own. Enjoy!
What Do You Want From a Wall Calendar?
As with nearly everything in life, when it comes to a calendar for your home life, you have to understand your own habits and needs first, and from that starting point you can choose that right calendar. What could you want from a wall calendar? Glad you asked:
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- Memory boost. The physical task of writing something down has been shown to help us recall the things we’ve written more effectively than when we type them, according to Scientific American. Maybe this is why Post-it notes and now writable tablets are so popular, too. Writing activates a broader field of activity in our brains.
- Mood boost, too. If you love the art or subject of the calendar—majestic mountains or cute kittens, anyone? —every time you walk by you get a little boost.
- Design infusion. If your space needs a pop of color or additional visual interest, you can surely find a calendar theme and size that will fit your style.
- The BIG picture. Your life is hectic, and you want to ensure everyone is marching to the same beat with a visual and accessible master calendar. Monitor multiple schedules, coordinate major events, and keep track of important dates, holidays, and horizon moments—like family trips—with one giant calendar, a.k.a. your lifeline.
- Accountability. For some, the wall calendar helps with accountability as you tick off dates and you accomplish certain tasks and work through to-do lists.
What else might you want from your wall calendar?
Millennials, being nearly tech native from their earliest years, can offer an interesting perspective on this throw back from a simpler, non-digital time when wall calendars hung in every home. We ‘listened’ to some millennials sound off via a few reddit threads and found these additional perspectives on the wall calendar:
There’s too much going on already on our mobile phones, so a lot of that noise gets ignored. It’s harder to ignore a wall calendar.
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- A way to see the passage of time, especially during COVID
- Finding enjoyment in the process of updating the new calendar with birthdays and anniversaries
- Remembering loved ones, human and pet, through the images chosen for personalized calendars
- When you work on a computer all day, it’s nice to step back from your laptop or mobile when possible.
- When you have young children, a physical calendar helps them learn about time.
- Somehow physical calendars and planners feel cozy.
We then flipped that on its head and asked a few boomers in our lives about their affinity for wall calendars. Here were a few responses we received:
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- Using a wall calendar ensures caregivers going in and out of our home have the same information.
- My kids laugh, but I still keep track of big things in their lives and our grandkids’ lives, too, so I need a big wall calendar.
- This isn’t about my age, but about my job as a farmer. It’s helpful to see our schedule laid out in a large format so I can visualize cycles for the crops and animals.
- We’ve always had one, we always will. And we still have decades worth in the closet if you want to see them. Some years there’s no white space left. Life was busier then. Editor’s note: Artifct those old calendars! They can be treasure-troves of events and memories past. Keep reading for tips on how to Artifct your calendars.
Could You Go Digital With Your Wall Calendar?
You could go digital for your wall calendar, even pocket sized on your mobile, but is it right for you?
Digital offers several advantages. The primary benefit is probably obvious: accessibility from anywhere. You’re at the grocery store, you’re at an event, whatever it is, you need information that is tucked inside the squares of that wall calendar. If you don’t get that information, it’s a deferred decision or another to-do added to your life.
You might also lean on a digital calendar for the benefit of reminders. You can set them by default (one month, week, day, hour). Technology is also evolving to offer smart reminders. For example, it’s likely that before long if you add a trip overseas to your calendar, the calendar will ping you well in advance to make sure your passport gets renewed, if necessary, on time. That’s efficiency and less stress all in one. It can also remind you about prescription refills and more.
Where can you find a digital wall calendar? We only know of one so far with size and features options that we’re eager to explore, and it’s from a well-known manufacturer of digital photo frames called SkyLight, a very logical product expansion from frame to calendar. If you have experience with the Skylight wall calendar or another digital wall calendar, we’d love to hear from you!
Traditional Wall Calendars: Before You Save that Old Wall Calendar, Consider Your "Why"
In an amusing thread on reddit, a discussion unfolded when a poster shared a website that would tell you when the dates on your calendar would align again in a future year. One commentor passed on that idea, claiming they would end up at the dentist office on the wrong day. Ha! Another felt this was a stretch too far to upcycle and leaned toward hoarding behavior. (But does it? Learn more about hoarding disorder.)
Historically, many people have treated calendars like journals, the ephemera of life, a record easily shared with others to remember what consumed our days, big and small, “back then.”
Some calendars these days are designed to be upcycled based on the beautiful, high-quality printed images on each month, which are easy to slice out and frame or even affix to cardstock to create a greeting card. Some large wall calendars like those created by School House (and pictured in the banner at the top of this story), are designed to be flipped over to enjoy the design on the back when the year is over.
Wall calendars work hard! They fill space, keep everyone walking by informed, and give you a sense of time and structure for your year.
Artifct those calendars!
Now that we can simply take digital photos of the calendars and/or digitize them, we suggest going back through that particular collection and considering whether it’s time to ditch the hardcopy. Consider Artifcting the calendar before you recycle to keep the memories and for reference back to potentially important dates. If it’s a monthly calendar, choose a month or two or three for the photos to feature in your Artifct and attach a scanned copy of the complete calendar in the documentation of your Artifct. Done!
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