An Insight Into a Personal Calendar

I must admit that I have been looking forward to getting to this topic ever since I began these articles.

You will remember that the theme of these articles is that every business in the world is made up of five parts. Those parts are as follows: "Clients and customers," "Administration," "Getting the work done," "Billing," and "Collecting."

This week's topic is part of what we began last week when we were talking about our firm's calendaring system. I told you that this week's topic would be about my personal calendar. If there was ever an autobiographical article that I was going to write, I'm sure that this is it. After you see the information that goes into my personal calendar, you will either be convinced that I am totally crazy, or that somewhere in all this craziness resides a little bit of organizational genius. No, I'm not saying I'm a genius, far from it, but at least you will see some organizational method in my madness.

I'm going to explain to you how my calendar developed, then I'm going to talk about each of the individual parts of the calendar that I utilize on a day to day basis. When I first started in the practice of law in 1970, I found it incredibly helpful to have information that I needed readily available at my fingertips for both my professional and my personal life. I began to make sections for my calendar and put them in a three ring notebook. I felt it incredibly helpful in trying to develop business to know exactly when I would be available so I could talk to any prospective client. I was able to see how various matters related to the time frame of other matters. The sections of my calendar evolved over a period of time, and I think I have it down to pretty much of a science after 35 years of perfecting it. So, let's start to talk about the sections in my calendar. The sections are as follows:

Personal
I have my name and address, all the phone numbers I utilize, my birth date, anniversary date, all the information regarding my children's phone numbers, and all their appropriate e-mail addresses, information regarding my radio show, the lawyer referral number, and the names and phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of all the people at the radio station. Why memorize all this information when you can write it down and look it up? I have six kids, a daughter-in-law and a grandson. I also put in this notebook information with regard to who to contact in case of an illness or an accident. I also show my blood type, allergies, who my physician is and my medical insurance information.

His and hers sizes
Don't laugh! I have all the information with regard to all the sizes that apply to me, all my wife's clothing sizes and all my children's sizes. This information has come in handy while shopping. I also have in this section all of the children's birth dates and social security numbers. Since I have six children, I made out a schedule regarding my children's school cost estimate per child and per year. I'm not going to share with you the numbers, but you can only imagine what it must be like when you have six children in various stages of education. What this chart showed me was that by the time I was to turn 60, there was going to be light at the end of the tunnel. Having a list of everyone's birthdays and anniversaries has been very helpful. This list includes all of my siblings' birthdays and anniversaries and all of their children's as well.

Miscellaneous Information
This section contains U.S. telephone area codes, world time zones, and a schedule with regard to simple interest rates, a chart for how much your time is worth and a calculation of your benefits as 40% of your total salary. You may be interested to know that when you add it all up, my value per minute is about $5.00 per minute. The next page is metric equivalents to U.S. measures and useful conversions.

Vacation Time
Yes, I even keep track of how much vacation time I take. You might ask why? Being able to look back and see how much vacation you have taken over a certain period of time makes you feel better about the fact that you are working as hard as you are, but that you actually do take some time for vacation. Also, it is sometimes interesting to go back and reminisce about some of the adventures you have had, and how many years ago it was and how much you enjoyed yourself at the time.

The Wirken’s Travels
I love to travel, and some years ago I decided to make a list of all the states in the Unites States, and all the countries in the world that my family had traveled to. It is great fun to keep track of these places on your list and to add to it as your family has opportunities to go and see new places. My son just came back from South America, and I am looking forward to sitting down with him and seeing what new countries we can add to our list.Whatever you hobbies are and whatever you passions are, keeping track of milestones is a great way to be able to reminisce, celebrate, and dream.

Quotes
Whenever I find a valuable quote, I cut it out and put it in my notebook so that I can refer back to it when I need to for inspiration or just a simple reminder about the beauty and poetry and impact of words.

Monthly and Yearly Objectives
For many years I've been writing down up to ten goals I have on a monthly and annual basis. It is amazing how being focused on monthly and annual objectives gives you some kind of yard stick to measure whether or not you are actually making any progress in multiple areas of your life. On my annual objective sheet, I also have added things like a data processing course, and an item that is particularly interesting called my personal board of directors.

Family Ledgers
I've found that as my children got more and more independent, that it is helpful to keep track of the financial relationship between us regarding what things I advanced on their behalf that they were expected to eventually pay back.

Contacts and Information
Every once in a while you will get some great information with regard to things like court numbers in Missouri and Kansas. I received a handy plastic sheet from AAA Court Reporting Company some years ago, and I triple whole punched it, and I've been carrying it in my notebook ever since. I also got District Court numbers. I have a list of all the filing deposits in Jackson County, Missouri, information regarding a paragraph for mandatory disclosure under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and both the Kansas and Missouri alcohol related driving offense summaries. You never know when you are going to get a call in the middle of the night!

Monthly, daily and yearly calendars
The next section is obviously the meat and potatoes of your calendar, and this is a monthly calendar that extends out a one year on a running one year basis. I also have a daily calendar that I described last week. I never go anywhere without my calendar. I believe that when lawyers go to meetings where things are going to be scheduled, in particular with judges, and they don't bring their calendars with them, the lawyers are certainly being both inconsiderate and unprofessional. I also have, at the end of the running one year calendar, multiple years going out 5 years, showing twelve months on one page, so that I can schedule things that may be outside of my running one year calendar.

Announcements
This next section of my calendar may be the most innovative and helpful after the normal day to day calendar that you use for everything involving your professional and personal life. In the announcements section of my calendar, I have either a xerox copy or the original of every event notice or invitation that I am going to be attending in the next year. I also calendar these items on my regular monthly and daily calendar. If there are multiple dates on one page, I will always file the announcement by the very last date it contains.

Personnel List
I have the phone extension, the name, address, phone numbers, birthday, anniversary date with the firm and e-mail address on every single employee in our office. I keep this in my notebook calendar with The Wirken Law Group billing rates and the Wirken Law Group holiday schedule. I also keep each attorney's bar numbers regarding the various courts that we are all admitted to. I have now had to start keeping the court's Case Management Electronic Case Files Access Code numbers as well.

Well, there you have it, my life in a "calendar-nutshell." Talk to you next week.

Jim Wirken is a civil trial attorney and the Chairman of the Board of The Wirken Law Group in Kansas City.