What is the point of having a joint calendar??!!!

[sassenach]

This is just a vent.

 

My husband and I both have very busy schedules. We have a joint calendar for anything that might affect the other person- family events, meeting where one person needs to be home with the kids, etc. 

 

He is continually double booking us!! I'm so frustrated. It's not that he is outranking his stuff over mine, it's that he is not paying any attention when booking things into the calendar. It's driving me crazy. He has booked TWO things over the same event. 

 

His admin went on maternity leave and she was pretty good about handling his schedule. The new admin is just getting his feet under him and is not catching these issues. 

 

I want to cry. Actually, I did cry this morning. 

 

Does anyone have a calendar app that doesn't allow you to double book? Or at least has some sort of pop-up acknowledgment? 

[SparklyUnicorn]

Too bad there wasn't a setting that simply didn't allow double booking. 

 

I don't know of anything like that.  I find it hard to believe he truly doesn't notice so I'd be mad too. 

[BooksandBoys]

Google always tells me when there's s. Inflict with an event I'm scheduling. I think I have to dismiss the warning to continue. If you are using google, that would suggest to me that the new admin might be "outranking" your husband's appointments. Maybe he needs a reminder that the conflict warnings need to be taken seriously?

[brehon]

I can commiserate; though, from the opposite side of the coin. I set up a google calendar for the family and linked everyone's phone. On dh's computer I then set the calendar to automatically open in a tab when he gets on the internet.

 

Bless his heart - the man constantly RSVPs for events or schedules appointments *WITHOUT* even bothering to look at the calendar. Then he doesn't tell me so I can enter them on the calendar. Argh!

 

I detest missing appointments without reason and being late - things that have happened more than once due to this issue.

[CadenceSophia]

Does the new admin realize that the things in that calendar are specifically for DH? I could understand not realizing "Johnny's baseball game" or "Wife's meeting" was an event that actually required DH.

 

That would drive me nuts though if I had a system that worked previously and suddenly my appointments and needs weren't being taken seriously.

 

DH and I email each other with important events that involve the other person. We don't use the same thought processes for calendars so sharing a digital one doesn't work out very well. I can't be trusted to actually use the calendar (I use my paper bullet journal) and DH needs an extreme level of detail or he has no idea what is going on. You know he actually asked me what the date of Christmas was this year?

[Farrar]

No. I suggested that when I took Cozi's user survey a year or so ago but it doesn't seem to be a new feature as far as I can see. Sometimes I want to purposefully double book something - I mean, if you know that such and such party is from 2-5 but you also know that it's okay that you leave early for kid's soccer game or whatever, it's fine. But I'd like to be able to see it pop up.

 

Dh is actually better about this than me. Sometimes he gets frustrated with me about it. And rightfully so!

[zejh]

I'm jealous that your dh has an admin... Mine could so use one of those. He sometimes remembers to put things in a shared Google calendar, sometimes not, and sometimes things show up that he doesn't really intend to do. (Sometimes he doesn't know where they came from.) That said, for big things like business trips he's pretty good about asking me first.

[bettyandbob]

I use Google calendar. It tells me when things are double booked. I color code appointments for each person. one color for me, one for each of the kids, a general color for things like appointments for the house like the plumber. I include work schedules in the appointments because we only have 2 cars and during college breaks 4 people who need to get to work and one person who needs supervision. Dh has a standard work schedule, but I have three jobs and odd shifts and dd and ds previously worked odd shifts. So, we needed to make sure everyone had transportation and younger ds had childcare covered. Add in getting younger ds to things like scouts and special olympics and having to deal with the random home maintenance needs. The schedule is complicated. So, it is essential that dh check the calendar daily.

 

As far as who is responsible for which appointments, we've divided these up based on who has the most flexibility to deal with the matter of each appointment. It's pretty obvious when you look at the calendar that just because a parent is not personally scheduled to do something, that parent if off the hook. There's always something to take care of, but we do text eachother during the day to make sure everything is covered eg: "dh, I'm taking ds to scouts tonight." 

 

I trained my family to check the calendar before going to the google calendar. I had another electronic calendar previously that could not be shared. Once a week I posted updated weekly calendars on the refridgerator for the current week and the upcoming week. Everyone checked. I really like the google calendar because dh can look at it on his phone when he's out and the version he sees will have whatever the latest changes are. He even mentions when he's noticed a changed. But I will also tell him when I make a change if I don't recall him mentioning it. 

 

I guess for us it's been the routine of everyone first checking the calendar and then checking to make sure all appointments are covered. No one makes assumptions. 

 

 

[JennyD]

We use Google calendar as well, with our obligations separately color coded.  It makes it pretty clear when there is a conflict.