Keeping track of time is part of being human. The first recorded calendars date back to the Bronze Age. Calendars may even predate writing – prehistoric structures like Stonehenge may have been architectural calendars. 

It makes sense that we humans want to keep track of time. Time is infinite, but our time is not. We want to keep tabs on how we spend the time we have. 

What’s the difference between a calendar and a schedule?

A calendar is a mechanism to track time. What are the days, the seasons, the years?

A schedule is the planned actions that happen at particular points in time. When are people doing what?

Schedules change; calendars don’t. Every person, institution, and country has its own schedule. Most of the world is using the same Gregorian calendar. 

Institutions and business publish their schedules – think of school calendars, train schedules, and business hours. Each person draws from all the schedules that impact them plus their own individual plans to figure out where they need to be and what they need to do at any given time. Some people are really meticulous about this process, time blocking every minute of their waking hours. Others don’t maintain a formal schedule at all, keeping their time as spontaneous and fluid as possible. 

For those of us who keep track of our schedule, most of us record our schedule on a calendar. That’s why people often use “calendar” and “schedule” interchangeably. 

Your personal calendar is for YOU.

Your calendar with your personal schedule is your account of your most precious resource – your time – to the most important person in your life – yourself. 

Each person has multiple demands on their time. Your schedule comprises your work, your family commitments, your social life, your personal goals, your healthcare appointments, your religious holidays – the list is endless and the particular combination is entirely unique to you. It’s your schedule, your time, your life. 

Whether you use an app, a paper planner, or simply keep it all in your head (and maybe your text history), the way you keep track of your time is as unique as your schedule itself. That’s because the first and most important audience for your timekeeping is yourself. You are the one who needs to know what you are going to do and when and where and with whom. 

Coordinating with others is the hard part. Thankfully, there’s an app for that.

Inevitably, you have to work with others to make your plans. Be it a date or a doctor’s appointment, you need to align your schedule with someone else’s at some point.

Coordination is where digital calendars really shine. Digital calendars are easily shared with others. You can create different calendars to share with different people, or use privacy settings to let some people see more than others. You can create digital events and invite everyone you need in an instant. Details like time and place are easily updated and those updates are instantly communicated to anyone. It’s amazing! 

Since digital calendars make it easier to plan things, more people than ever are using digital calendars to keep track of their schedules. Even with these tools, though, people often need to talk to each other to pin down and confirm appointments or event times. Sometimes this communication is easy, but more often it’s tedious and frustrating. That leads us to the latest evolution in timekeeping technology is scheduling apps. 

Scheduling apps give users new tools to handle the coordination effort beyond simply sharing schedules verbally or digitally. At Kronistic, we’re trying to push the envelope even further with a scheduling AI that lets humans focus on their own schedules and leaves all the coordinating to the computers. Our mission is to make scheduling less time-consuming, so you have more room on your calendar for literally everything else.