Effective appointment calendar software should have the ability to create multiple categories, display a monthly view, create reminders and provide recurrence capability. In this article series I will go in-depth into the above features and show the valuable benefits of each one. In this article the focus is the monthly view.

When your appointment calendar software can provide to you an interactive monthly view, you have the ability to make notes directly onto your calendar page just as you do with paper calendars.

Obviously, the one disadvantage of the paper version is the modification difficulty. With the interactive monthly view of the appointment calendar software, no such difficulty exists you just select, modify and save your notes. Another disadvantage of the monthly view of the paper appointment calendar is the lack of space in which to write your notes. A good monthly view appointment calendar program will alleviate this issue by allowing you to 'zoom in' on a particular date.

The 'zoom in' capability should expand the calendar block (specific date input box) so that you have plenty of room to make notes. In fact, the 'zoom in' feature could zoom the specified calendar block to the size of the monthly view for greatest ease of use and make large data entry a breeze.

To provide quick 'zoom in' and 'zoom out' capability, the ideal appointment calendar program would allow a click on the box itself to alternate between the zoom states.

The value of an interactive monthly view can be great in respect to time savings and ease of use. If you throw in a zoom feature that provides you with greater utility to make notes, you have a powerful organization tool at your fingertips that will show big dividends in time savings and task accuracy in the near and distant future.

In conclusion, when you bring the power of the monthly view of the paper calendar to the computer world and add the utility features that the computer can bring such as zoom, you can feel confident that you have the tools you need to get the job done better, faster and cheaper. In my next installment (part 3), I will talk about reminders. A definite life saver in this hectic society we live in today. Don't miss it!

(c) Copyright 2005 Olan Butler All Rights Reserved