Looking Back on 2019 Through My Calendar

A month-by-month retrospective on 2019 and how moving from a calendar-shaped to-do list to shared, categorized, weekly scheduling improved the way I managed my own time and coordinated with others.

Hello,

I am Sanghyo Yee, a product designer at the startup Buzzvil. At the turn of the year, I decided to look back on 2019 through my digital calendar for three reasons:

My use of a personal calendar improved dramatically in 2019.
I wanted to share a systematic approach with people who, like me, had not known how to manage schedules this way.
Most entries are completed events, making it easy to see what I actually did.

Leveling up my calendar practice

2015–2018

Looking back, this seems to be around when I began recording plans in a digital calendar.

I began using a MacBook and iPhone in 2015 and was already comfortable with Apple Calendar because the devices synchronized well. Simply noting a date and setting an alert was useful: my synced iPhone would remind me on the morning of the event.

Looking back, though, I think I used the calendar like a to-do list until 2018. I recorded major checklist items, but the calendar did not tell me exactly when I would do each task.

2018: I was still using it like a to-do list. Around this point I began separating work and personal calendars.

If no time is entered, Apple Calendar schedules an event at 9–10 a.m. by default. Used as a simple daily notebook, it produces a picture like the one below.

2019

By December 2019, a single week looked enormously complicated. Here is what changed:

I connected Google Calendar to Apple Calendar.

I can use and edit the same synchronized schedule on different platforms depending on the situation.

Click an event to see its time, place, recurrence, notes, and participants.

I share my schedule with other people.

Managing and sharing personal and work events by the hour makes conversations about time much more effective.
I no longer ask everyone for available meeting times one by one. I inspect members' calendars and invite them directly.

I manage broad categories such as work, personal, and external events.

This is extremely convenient when coordinating company or project-group schedules.
Color and grouping make each event's category immediately visible.

I changed from monthly to weekly scheduling.

As the screenshot shows, I can manage events at a detailed hourly level.
It also suits agile weekly sprints.

I began properly using features such as recurring events, private events, and vacation schedules.

2018 vs. 2019

Apple Calendar's year view outlines each date based on its number of events:

No square: a day with no events
Orange square: a moderate one to five events
Red square: six or more events

I used that view to compare 2018 and 2019. The broad insights were:

There were far more recorded events in 2019. → I recorded and managed my time in greater detail than in 2018.
Both years had more events in the second half than the first. → Did my New Year's goals require more scheduling later on?

Below are the public events I could extract from the calendar, organized by month.

January

Wrapped up and left my previous job
Finished freelance work
Portfolio
Prepared for a new role

February

Joined Buzzvil
Began using Figma
Began using Google Calendar
OKRs
Started a design × development study group

March

Introduced Lottie
Started CrossFit
Began playing Zelda

April

Worked hard

May

Improved Phantom, Buzzvil's design system
Started design-team peer reviews
First participated in Dodo

June

Joined an external design community
Hosted an internal motion-design workshop

July

Launched Honeyscreen for iOS

August

Won an award in a Buzzvil promotional-video competition
Launched Buzzvil Quiz Time
Hosted an internal motion-design study group

September

Renewed the Buzzvil website
Began participating in Dodo as an organizer
Numbers project

October

Celebrated Halloween

November

Launched Honeyscreen Surprise Gift mode
Launched Phantom 2.0, Buzzvil's design system

December

Contributed design to a designers' year-end party
Moved house, with more planning than before

Closing thoughts

Using my calendar better has made me much more productive. It cannot answer exactly whether I “lived more diligently in 2019 than in 2018,” but I am proud that I learned to treat both my own time and other people's time with more care. In 2020, I want to record more intelligently so I can achieve even more. Thank you for reading.