It’s around this time of the year that people start thinking more about their calendars. This is usually due to the number of available days running down on their existing ones as the year draws to a close. More people are thinking about the days of the month when they’re counting down to Christmas, and Advent calendars just make checking what day it is a lot…tastier!

While the calendar that we all know hasn’t really changed much since Pope Gregory decreed its adoption in 1582, the way in which we monitor our calendars and the various appointments we make differs greatly from person to person.

If you are bit tired of using pen and paper calendars to mark your appointments, consider looking at your email client. If you are using Microsoft Outlook, there is a calendar already built in to the program. Add your appointments, enter birthdates of contacts with reminders, and even add in ‘New Zealand holidays’ automatically (Tools > Options > Calendar Options > Add Holidays > New Zealand).

If you are using the free Mozilla Thunderbird client, download the Lightning extension to access similar functionality to Outlook’s. Or you can download Sunbird to have a stand-alone calendaring application for free. Windows Vista and Mac OSX also already have a built-in calendar with Windows Calendar and iCal respectively.

If you’d prefer to us an online option, check out Google Calendar where you can create a calendar for free using your Gmail account. Google Calendars can also be imported into each other. This means you can add Catholic Saint Feast Days alongside your other appointments with the click of a button. If your local parish is online with Google (and increasingly, many are) you can even add them in to see what’s happening locally – all for free!