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Years ago, most people started putting this stuff in their phones.

I continued to use little appointment books, until they elevated in price from “free giveaways at the Hallmark store” to $12 - even for the little ones I used, and had to be ordered online.

My phone tends to sit on my nightstand until and unless I’m leaving blokeplace, or if I happen to notice that the face of it is lit up with a text or email notice… so – since I really don’t live with the phone, as do most people – it’s not the world’s greatest reminder that I have to play a gig on a particular day. I think I have download one app onto it and all these years - a credit card processing one… and yes, I’m quite aware that a calendar and a reminder system is built into the phone without having to download anything.

As far as gigs are concerned, I’ve retreated to a bathroom mirror sticky note system. The mirror is ridiculously huge and ridiculously tall, so the sticky notes are very visible but above where I need to see the comb my thinning hair. Further, it’s a place that I visit very early each morning. The sticky notes are in order of the gigs, and - after I’ve played one - I’ll pull down that sticky note and throw it in the trash can. Ie. “analog deletion“.

(It’s 8:30 A.M. I typed this post on my laptop, have not looked at my phone yet today, and may not.)

Don't know what kind of cellphone you use but...

I always back up my phone to my computer. It does it automatically when I plug it in to charge it at night. As well as backing it up, it syncs everything on my calendar and contacts to my computer. Any event or contact info entered in either place will be the same every morning. The event alarm can go off on the phone and on the computer. Also, it seems like people use their cellphones as their cameras almost exclusively these days so, when your phone is backed up to your computer, your photos are backed up, too.

Cellphones can be lost or misplaced. The cost of replacing a phone isn't the hardware. You can even get low-cost insurance for that. It's the information.

But what if my computer crashes and I lose all of that? These days, big hard drives are cheap enough that your computer should be on a back up schedule, too. (I know a guy who put all of the pictures of the first six years of his children's lives on a computer and it crashed without a backup. Even the techs who have the ability to take a drive apart and use techniques 'cybercrime experts" couldn't get anything back.)

The software to do these backups come with computers and phones. There is better software than the stuff which comes free but the free stuff works.

Too much bother? Don't come crying to me. There are costs involved in being a luddite.

I'm not crying about anything.
I use sticky notes - once again: stuck to one of the first horizontal surfaces I face, each morning.
So far, they haven't unstuck, fubar-updated, nor lost their charge.

freeway philharmonic (out-of-town orchestra) schedules:
I'll write down the schedule on a sticky note, but - once there - I'll double check with the bass trombonist, regarding subsequent rehearsals.

customer appointments:
I ALWAYS put those on the CUSTOMER.
"Call me the night before - after dinner - on my landline to confirm, and then call me again the next morning - before leaving your house - to remind."
Those - here - who are customers, know this.

I use my phone calendar for most everything, usually looking at it at the beginning of the week for a big picture view. Sticky notes, however do have their place.

If something comes to mind (mostly chores and stuff) in the midst of something else demanding my attention, that goes on a sticky note before the fleeting moment is gone. The sticky note goes on the bottom of my iMac and is right in my face until completed. I've never forgotten something on a sticky note like this. For shopping list items, the AnyList app paired with our Google Home lets us do that on the fly. Highly recommended!

My phone calendar, with its myriad ways to set reminders and alarms, is my brain anymore. At my age, I have to look every Monday at what doctor appts I have the coming week. Then I can look at gigs, work, etc.

I’m sure the borg knows where I am every hour of every day, but I don’t think it can read my sticky notes.

Neither can you, if you aren’t standing in front of your mirror.

Rick “usually somewhere else when needing your record an appointment” Denney

I’m not as up to date as post it notes. I created a daily and a monthly form and keep them in a letter sized three ring binder. With morning coffee, I check the day on the monthly calendar and type (yes with a typewriter) my schedule, to do list, etc. into the daily page. I also note what I practiced that day and my impression of the results.

Rick Denney wrote: ↑Sun May 29, 2022 2:38 am Neither can you, if you aren’t standing in front of your mirror.

Rick “usually somewhere else when needing your record an appointment” Denney

It it might not have occurred to most people that I’m nearly here all of the time, because I work from home. I really only leave to go pick up supplies at some farm supplies or materials related place. I am not the grocery shopper, and most all of my repair and customizing supplies are shipped in. I’m either filthy and in raggedy clothes here – working on horns or working on the property, or I am at some venue all dressed up in some form of black clothing.
When I’m called for a gig, I’m usually right here, write it on a sticky note, and stick it up on the mirror. Again (unlike my phone), that mirror is seen first thing in the morning and several times throughout the day. I’m quite aware that my life is quite different from the lives of most others - including the fact that I’m really not interested at all in going on so-called “vacations“ - and certainly not to population centers. (I go places - occasionally- and enjoy myself, but most of the places I go are business related trips. I’m headed to an every three years reunion at the end of July. If I wasn’t so busy with school repairs, I would’ve gotten a bunch of plating lined up to drop off with Anderson on the way up and pick up on the way home.)
I use computers quite a bit – including a phone, but I would imagine that more of my life is analog than compared many others.

bloke “getting ready to unload some nasty 55 gallon drums - only $10 ea., lids and tension bands included - which formally contained bearing grease, and still do have a lot of nasty residue inside and out. I have to do that analog, and I have to clean them analog.”