For years, Crystal and I have been getting requests for a Monday-start calendar. Having been a traditional Sunday-start calendar girl for every one of my 42 years, I would laugh and shake my head. After all, we couldn't create every single variation that was suggested. But the requests kept coming and they grew in number each year.
Eventually Crystal wanted to see what all the fuss was about so she switched her calendar to Monday start. In her co-parenting life it was a major game-changer and made planning so much easier. But even after Crystal started using a Monday-start calendar and started extolling it's virtues, I was still hesitant. Here's why:
- Habit. I'm a creature of habit and changing a long-standing habit like the day the week starts felt like energy I just didn't want to expend.
- Underlying religious sentiment. In my head there was something decidedly Christian about Sunday being the beginning of the week. Since that's my cultural background, switching to a different start day felt somewhat heathen to me. It sounds funny but that was my initial reaction. Then the more I thought about it the more I realized that there's also a story about resting on the 7th day and it can't be simultaneously the 7th day and the 1st day so why not move it to the end of the week?
- Annoyance. Following closely on the heels of habits, when I initially switched my phone calendar to Monday start, I kept getting annoyed that the days weren't where they had always been when I went to schedule something. There are enough things that annoy me that my calendar didn't need to be one of them. I switched back to Sunday start after 2 weeks.
- I don't like change. I really do try to cultivate flexibility but sometimes I'm a slow-adopter. When Instagram came out, I was the one who thought it would just be another fade. I'm not a Luddite but I'm usually not the first one to hop on a bandwagon for new and potentially amazing things.
- Ironically, I didn't think it would change much. I can appreciate that we all have our preferences and I thought Monday-start was just that, a preference. However, when Crystal suggested making our new summer calendar a Monday-start calendar because she thought it was a better way to calendar, I balked. How could changing one day of the week have that big of an impact? Since we were on a creative journey to put together The Ultimate Family Calendar, I humored her and tried it again, if only to disprove her theory that it was indeed a more family-friendly way to calendar...until I realized that it was.
In our testing phase, I got several printed up and started using them. While it did take some effort to re-calibrate my vision of the week, I came to LOVE looking at the weekend stretching before me in 2 glorious squares (3 if you count Friday, which I do). I also loved feeling like we were hitting the ground running on Monday with the commitments, practices, activities and camps starting on Monday and that if we could just get through those first four or five days the weekend was waiting to welcome us with open arms. I also realized that very few things run from Sunday to Monday but a whole lot of things run from Saturday to Sunday and from Monday through Friday. As I applied my washi tape to the calendar everything was a little tidier, as though it was all fitting together very naturally.
I kind of started to love it. And I knew I was converted when I started to get annoyed with my Sunday-start calendar because it was messing up the way I viewed the week :).
Our new Summer Break Calendar, aka the Ultimate Family Calendar, is Monday start. We both think it's a great way to stay organized, communicate your plans and conceptualize how the week is shaping up. If you agree, we've got a calendar for you.
If you disagree, that's ok. As illustrated above, I totally get it! That's why we're keeping our Annual Calendar a Sunday-start calendar. There's something here for everyone!
We'd love to hear from you though, are you on team Monday-start or team Sunday-start?