Garage Calendar?

[PNWMuseumman]

How do you guys keep track of when scheduled chores/tasks need to be done?

Maybe this is the OCD accountant in me showing itself at home... But I've always preferred regular repeating tasks like checking lights and tire pressures on the cars, changing the furnace filters, lawn mower / other small engine maintenance, to be mapped out on a calendar so that I have a reminder of when it needs to be done and I can track when and what was done.
Do any of you do this? If so, how? Do you just keep it in your phone? do you keep a written out calendar in the shop? Some other thing I haven't thought of?

Just curious

Thanks and happy Friday!

Chris in the PNW

 

[adamgayton81]

I just use my iPhone reminders, alerts, and calendars. I have used a couple of “To Do” apps as well.


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[tekman00]

For a while i had 5 vehicles i had to maintain. (kids still living at home). So i found an MS excel spreadsheet, and I customized it to meet my needs. I have it set so when I enter a car's milage, it calculates when the next oil change or other maintenance is due, and highlights it in red if it's past due. It took a lot of time to get it to work properly. I had to consult the mighty GOOGLE god to learn how to program the cells. I usually only change the oil and let the other stuff slide, but at least i KNOW when i am neglecting my duties. the JPEG is a sample of what it looks like.

 

[Falcon67]

STD board - 3'x5' white dry erase board (STD = **** To Do)

Yes, I have a real paper calendar. Our car club prints one every year. When it gets to my month, that's the end of page flipping.

 

[BuffettFan]

Outlook Calendar works great. As long as you're on the computer regularly enough.
Oh, wait....Appears we all are.

 

[zmotorsports]

Another white board user here. Seems like lately more items are being added to the "to do" list than being removed.

 

[rlitman]

Outlook Calendar works great. As long as you're on the computer regularly enough.
Oh, wait....Appears we all are.

LMAO.

I use Outlook Calendar for work calendars, but mostly have my calendars in Google Calendar. These work well in the calendar app on my iphone, and I can easily share some with my wife, and others with the wife and kids, etc.

I've got calendars for car maintenance (with reminders for things like inspections due, etc), another for gardening tasks, one for trash days (recycling, lawn debris, days that the sanitation department has off, etc), one for birthdays, one for doctor's appointments, one for school events, etc.

By separating the events into different calendars, I can easily select just one calendar and pull up a list view of all the upcoming events for just that one.

And by using something online, my wife can make a dentist appointment, and I'll get a notification on my phone. It's a big time saver for me, and means I don't forget things.

 

[crewchief888]

STD board - 3'x5' white dry erase board (STD = **** To Do)

we used to use dry erase boards in the race shop. kinda kept us "up to date" on what we were doing. we were in and out of the shop at all times of the day and night.

in my own garage, i dont do much of anything till it's broken.

i do hae a small white board on the inside of the service door, i use it to remind myself when on low on supplies...

 

[engineer2]

Excel spredsheet.
Several worksheets: Projects, History, automobiles, appliances, tools, computers, birthdays, etc.
Projects
Column A is dates. Excel can easily handle the 32,000+ dates for your entire life.
Row 1 is today's date.
Columns B,C,D are whatever I'm doing or working on.
Column E is shoppping lists and longer-range tasks that I can move to B, C, D
History - once the day is done A1 thru D1 get moved to History.

Very handy for planning. History is good when you are trying to remember when you bought that TV or last painted that bedroom.

 

[Jinks]

calendarscope.com On all my computers. Popup reminders set for the specific date or with as much warning as you need.

I don't pay attention to paper calendars so I tried having calendar girls come by with reminders. My wife got mad, the neighbor wives complained, & the anti-****** society threatened to have me run out of town! But!, none of the husbands in the neighborhood complained............

 

[bdbecker]

I should have known there would be a couple of other Excel nerds floating around here. I've got a master file that I use for lots of oddball stuff. For household items, I have a checklist of various items and what month they need to happen in. At the end of the year, I just delete all the X's and start over again. Other items I track are all my workouts, on another sheet I track tool/equipment/appliance purchase dates, along with their warranty period so I figure out quickly if something is under warranty without having to dig through a bunch of paperwork. Heck, I even have a sheet for when I smoke meat on my smoker so I can record things like how long I cooked and at what temp, which rub I used, and how much of which wood I mixed in with the charcoal. Interestingly enough, I actually don't track auto maintenance, I just let the built in service reminders on the cars tell me when its time for an oil change and I look in the manual for whatever else needs to be done, although I should probably at least log the service dates for future reference.

 

[jetnow1]

Dear Lord please don't let my girlfriend find this thread. The idea if a spreadsheet to do list scares me, virtually unlimited cells for her to list
items for me to do!

 

[engineer2]

The idea if a spreadsheet to do list scares me

The problem is the list never shrinks, it just keeps growing.

 

[isb cornbinder]

I put my schedule into my BlackBerry. This is an old age thing. I have so many appointments to keep so the medical persons can keep me alive for the next appointment. The Golden Years are a PITA and two other places.

 

[bczygan]

I usually let things slide until my wife complains about bad noises.....

Pretty soon the Alzheimer's should kick in, and I won't be required to remember anything!

Bill

 

[LS6 Tommy]

Grey matter calendar...

Tommy

 

[Bacon Man]

I use the free fastenal calendars I get from work and mark stuff down on them......

 

[NUTTSGT]

Appointments go in the phone calendar.

The white board gets used for short or long term to do list and "need to buy" list.

IMHO, the white board is one of the best things to buy for the garage/shop wall. Cheap and versatile.

 

[James-W]

I have a fairly large calendar in the house where I write down short notes as to when I need to do stuff. So if I have an oil change to do on one of the cars I make a note on the calendar on the day I want to do it.

 

[ozyborn]

Dear Lord please don't let my girlfriend find this thread. The idea if a spreadsheet to do list scares me, virtually unlimited cells for her to list
items for me to do!

Grey matter calander. Monthly tasks first Sunday each month, every three months vehicle oil changes. Honey do list? On iPad in the house. Lol

 

[Joshua_Russo]

I've been wanting to try a personal Kanban board with post-it notes.

Two main rules...
1.) Visualize all your work
2.) Limit your WIP (Work In Progress)

This guy explains it pretty well.

I get stressed because I'm trying to do a lot, and while I can keep my own priorities straight of what needs to happen when and plod along, my creative wife's priorities change sometimes day to day. She also struggles with estimating how much time and energy tasks take for herself or for me.

I think a post-it board with something like Options, WIP, and Done will really help her visualize and (especially) prioritize, and it'll do wonders for my focus.

Edit: Sorry, just reread the op. This isn't about scheduled tasks, but I appreciate the original post because it got me seriously thinking about doing the kanban board.

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[Firebrick43]

Are you kidding me! I read this thread expecting pics of snap on pin up girl calendars and such. Instead your all talking about excel? What's this world coming to!

 

[slimcake]

I hear you there!! This is what I have had for the last 6 years. https://www.hotshotscalendar.com/

Spreadsheets..... sheeessshhhh

 

[PNWMuseumman]

I've been wanting to try a personal Kanban board with post-it notes.

Two main rules...
1.) Visualize all your work
2.) Limit your WIP (Work In Progress)

This guy explains it pretty well.

I get stressed because I'm trying to do a lot, and while I can keep my own priorities straight of what needs to happen when and plod along, my creative wife's priorities change sometimes day to day. She also struggles with estimating how much time and energy tasks take for herself or for me.

I think a post-it board with something like Options, WIP, and Done will really help her visualize and (especially) prioritize, and it'll do wonders for my focus.

Edit: Sorry, just reread the op. This isn't about scheduled tasks, but I appreciate the original post because it got me seriously thinking about doing the kanban board.

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I'm glad you posted this! That's a really interesting thought of doing a visualization board. I will probably be implementing that in my garage. I never thought to do something like that.

Thank you for sharing!