Beep! Beep!

In order to understand today's post, you must know three things about me:
1. I hate appointments.
2. I love gadgets.
3. I'll probably be late for my own funeral.

I've come to accept these as self-evident and inalienable facts. That's not to say I haven't experimented with methods of overcoming my tardiness. I used to place my alarm clock across the room and choose my clothes before I fell asleep. Neither worked. It still took me about 15 minutes to drag my ass out of bed (hey, Rock 103's morning show is decent even at 120 decibels!) only to discover I didn't really like my chosen outfit so much after all. It was an exercise in futility.

My favorite way of staving off lateness is to set my watch a few minutes fast or slow. In fact, every clock I own is set to a different time. My SideKick is the closest to NIST's Official U.S. Time -- it's only off by a couple of seconds. My desktop computer is two and a half minutes slow; my car clock is two and a half minutes fast. My office phone is seven minutes slow; my analog watch is seven minutes fast. My PDA is off by about five minutes, and my digital watch by about 17 minutes. Not that any of this matters. I know how fast or slow each clock is ... so my brain isn't fooled one iota.

But I have come up with a method for keeping appointments that's absolutely foolproof. First, I set my digital watch alarm to go off. THEN I add the appointment to my Outlook Calendar (which exports automatically to my PDA and my SideKick). THEN I write it on my dry-erase office calendar ... and if it's really important, e-mail a reminder to myself at home and work.

I've scheduled a standing appointment for Tuesday afternoons that reminds me I have to code some SQL before I go home. And there's no way I could forget, either. Here's how I'm reminded of my 4 p.m. alarm:

• At 3:43 p.m., my digital watch beeps at me.
• This causes me to look up at my calendar to see what's written there.
  
• If I forget, my PDA goes off at 3:55 p.m. (and every seven minutes thereafter).
  
• My SideKick lights up and vibrates at 4 p.m. on the dot (and every four minutes thereafter).
  
• And at 4:02 p.m., Outlook displays a pop-up reminder -- which usually draws my attention to the e-mail I've sent myself.

Why, then, am I late for stuff all the time?

In high school, I wrote things on my hand when I needed to remember them. Hey, it was a good idea: It's low tech and cheap -- and I'm fairly sure my hand isn't going anywhere without me. I quit doing that when I walked into the girls' bathroom one day, looked into a mirror ... and realized TUNA SALAD was imprinted on my forehead in red pen. Another life lesson learned through total humiliation.

These days, I'm sticking to the gadgets. But I'm still looking for a good method of keeping up with meetings (especially the boring ones my brain tries very hard to ignore). Suggestions, anyone?