A Wedding Planning Tip From A Computer Geek? Sure Enough, And It’s One Of My Favorites
I have a good tip for staying organized while you’re planning your wedding. It’ll help keep you focused and grounded, and it’ll help you save money too if you’re doing all the planning yourself. First, you’ll need to get some things together.
Along with my free wedding checklist which you can get from my website, you’ll also need a day planner, a wall calendar, and the “swap space” notebook.
I really recommend using Google Docs and Google Calendar for online sharing and storage of documents. Offline a pin-up wall calendar will be very helpful.
I really like Google Docs because you can share them with each other and your wedding planner if you have one. Everyone can see what’s going on up to the minute, and it’s easy for anyone to update it. The Google Calendar has similar benefits. You can put your appointments into your Google Calendar and it will show up on everyone else’s Google calendar as well. It’s even more convenient if you have smart phones that can access the Google calendar wherever you are. And finally visually it is always helpful to see a pin up wall calendar to visually see the dates progress.
Now you’re ready for my tip about the swap space notebook. This came from one of my friends who’s really into computers.
Swap space refers to a computer’s inactive memory. It’s sometimes called “virtual memory” and can be thought of as a temporary holding area. Computers also have a primary memory space, called memory or RAM. They load the information for the particular task they’re working on into memory and work off of that. Despite appearances, computers only do one thing at a time. This means that all the information aside from the small bit they’re actively using is temporarily moved into swap space. As soon as the computer changes tasks, it recalls the information it now needs from swap space back into memory.
People are like computers.
We cannot work on more than one task at a time. It sometimes seems that way but we are focusing only on one task at a time. What we are not working on stays in our (conscious memory). What we are not working on gets swapped out to our virtual memory (subconscious memory).
And yet, people are not like computers (thankfully!)
We may be good at moving information into our swap space, but we’re not so good at bringing it back to memory. Just think of the times you have a name or word on the tip of your tongue but just can’t think of it. How about when you hear a song but just cannot recall the name? Then the name will come to you sometime later, but too late to help you. Humans are imperfect when it comes to recalling information from our swap space.
Introducing: The Swap Space Notebook!
Take a notebook EVERYWHERE! And a pen! Just like the old days. Anytime you have something you need to remember jot it down. There does not need to be any organization or order to the notebook. Just jot it down. The idea is to not spend any time on this task. That’s why my friend doesn’t use any type of “notes” option on a cell phone. Paper and Pen are quicker.
Once you’re ready to focus on it, go back to the Notebook and see what’s there. You’ll feel better knowing that your brilliant flash of inspiration or recollection is recorded somewhere, so your brain doesn’t have to keep tabs on it. You don’t have to worry about forgetting, because it’s in the Notebook.
This will happen to you a lot while you’re wedding planning and living everyday life. You can’t predict when your best ideas will come to you, so have your Notebook handy so you can put them into your pen and paper swap space. Who knows when you’ll think of the cleverest wedding favor idea, the most romantic first dance song, the best wedding reception game, or the three vital questions you need to ask the venue you’re thinking of booking? With the Swap Space Notebook, you don’t have to remember everything yourself.
That will help you stay sane. Congratulations and good luck with the wedding planning!
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