New Year, Same Crappy Calendar? [Calendar Reform Blog]

It's a new year! And millions are literally turning the page onto our new, 2020 calendars. But by doing so, we're carrying the same problems we have with our calendar over into a new year.

Our Gregorian Calendar itself is the problem. Actually, it has several problems.

Each month of our current calendar varies in length: 31, 28/29, 31, 30, 31, etc. We have to look at a printed calendar or recite a rhyme to remember month lengths. Because of this, business quarters are unequal, causing problems for accountants and business owners.

Connecting a weekday with a day of the month is now nearly impossible (Quick, what weekday did March 9, 2014 fall on? It was a Sunday. But you'd have to look at a calendar, or Google it, to know this.)

Determining how many days in each year have passed - and how many we have left - is also not an easy task with the Gregorian.

What's the solution? There are many. One of them that's been suggested in recent years is the Thirty-Eleven Calendar. (30x11.com)

In this modern calendar reform proposal, the first 11 months would have 30 days. December, the 12th, would have 35 days in a regular year, and 36 days in a leap year. (This doesn't change the length of the 365/366-day year.)

This is a "gentle" reform to an old calendar we've become accustomed to, not a radical re-design that will leave people confused and hostile to the change. Previous attempts to reform the calendar changed the number of months, the number of days in the week, or had other radical changes that made them unacceptable to most people.

What advantages does this calendar have over our current one?

It has an easy-to-remember 11 straight months of 30 days each, ending the confusion of variable month lengths. It offers three identical business quarters of 90 days each. It still only has one "leap day," and puts it in December, at the very end of the year.

It allows easy calculation of ordinal days (number of days in the year), since almost all months are equal in length and each month within a calendar year starts again after 30 days. March 1 is always the 61st day of the year. June 30 is always 180th. November 15th is always the 345th.

Months also progress in a more logical fashion, with each month within a year's calendar year starting two weekdays later than the previous month did (if January starts on a Monday, February starts on a Wednesday.)

Learn more at www.30x11.com.

5 Ways to "Re-Boot" Our Stupid, Irrational, Failed Calendar [#CalendarReform Blog]

Few would argue that our calendar is perfect. The number of days in each month are uneven, its quarters are unequal, and it's impossible to determine when on which day of the week any random date will fall.

That said, very few people know that there are many, many great ideas to reform our calendar and make how we mark time more predictable, and easier.

Here are just FIVE concepts to reform our current calendar:

1. The 13-Moon Calendar. Inspired by the ancient Mayan Long-Count calendar, this proposal to reform the current Gregorian calendar re-names all the months, and introduces other innovations, including an extra month, which approximates many ancient calendars.

2. The Symmetry454 Calendar is a proposal by a Toronto university professor. It features four exactly equal quarters of 28-, 35- and 28-day months, making it easier to compare fiscal quarters. It's beautiful symmetry contrasts with the chaotic Gregorian.



3. The 13-month "Sol" Calendar updates an Old Idea - the 13- month year tied to the lunar cycle. This calendar's 13 months are all 28 days long, making it easy to remember the length of months. A leap year is added to the last month, December, and a new month, Sol, is added between June and July.

4. The New Earth Calendar is a bit of a hybrid - mixing the best elements of proposals like the Symmetry454 calendar and the 13 months of the Sol calendar.

5. Finally, the 30x11 Calendar is what its creator calls a "Gentle Update" of our current calendar. All of its months are 30 days long, except December, which rounds out the 365 or 366-day year with 35 or 36 days. It makes it incredibly easy to determine what day number each day on the calendar holds, and makes it easy to remember days.

All of these calendars - and MANY MORE - can be found EXCLUSIVELY on the new Abbott ePublishing eBook "A New Calendar for The World" available from the Abbott ePublishing website.

The New Earth #Calendar - A Great Way To Make Our Calendar Better! [#CalendarReform Blog]

A truly innovative and noteworthy calendar reform proposal is the New Earth Calendar. It features 13 months of exactly 28 days each. 

It lacks a "leap day" and waits 5 or 6 years and simply adds a "leap WEEK" of 7 days to the year. This keeps the calendar perpetual, while preserving the traditional 7-day week. Keep reading for an official explanation, including other benefits.

(Text below is from the newearthcalendar.com Website.)

"The New Earth Calendar is intended to serve and benefit all the people on Earth. It is not influenced by religion, politics, nationality, race or sex. It simply correlates the relationship between the earth, its rotation and annual journey around the sun. It applies equally to all inhabitants of Earth, and only Earth because it would be meaningless on any other planet, around any other sun or in any other solar system. It is unique to us.

Consider having just one monthly calendar, rather than the 28 in our current system. The New Earth Calendar is a practical refinement of the Gregorian calendar we now use and would eliminate the many inconsistencies that have been perpetuated for more than 2000 years. Thirteen equal months of 28 days. Each quarter has exactly 13 weeks and an equal number of workdays.

Each week, month and year starts on a Monday, never a Sunday. Sunday is the last day of the week and would always be on the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th of the month. 

Each country will be able to set their holidays in accordance with local custom, but generally, with the exception of Easter, they will always be on a fixed date and day of the week. 

They could be set so as to establish long weekends, but shorten the “dead week” that typically happens between Christmas and New Year’s Day. With The New Earth Calendar and Sundays always on fixed dates, the possible dates for Easter are reduced from around 35 to about 5 or 6."

More at www.30x11.com.

13 Months In A Year? Yes It Makes Sense! [#CalendarReform blog]

In ancient times, and even in some contemporary societies, calendars were 13 months in length, rather than 13. The Sol Calendar proposal would bring back the 13 month calendar, and, aside from the superstitious fear of the number Thirteen, it's very much worth considering.

This calendar reform idea was developed by Jim Eikner of Austin, Texas, and consists of a year of 13 months in length with the first 12 months having 28 days each, and the final month of the year, December, having 29. December would have 30 days in leap years, which line up with the leap years in the Gregorian calendar.

The months are named the same as they are in the Gregorian calendar, except that a month called Sol - named for our Sun - is inserted between June and July, and it is this month that gives the calendar its name.

Although every month within the same year begins on the same day of week, the months begin on different days of the week in different years.

The 13-month Sol Calendar is a new take on a very old idea. It is, in fact, an adaptation of International Fixed Calendar, which in turn has its roots in the Positivist Calendar created by French philosopher August Comte in 1849.

In each year, the 29th and 30th days in December move the first day of the January of the following year either one or two weekdays forward in relation to that previous year. However, within any given year, monthly calendars for January through November remain identical to each other, in that they start on the same day of the week – and of course, are all 28 days in length.

Some of the features and benefits of the 13-month Sol Calendar:

• Twelve contiguous and identical months of exactly 28 days
• The thirteenth month of the year (December) has 29 days normally and 30 days in a leap year
• This calendar has the same names for the months as the Gregorian Calendar
• The new month (Sol) occurs between June and July
• Preserves the standard, 7-day week
• Preserves Gregorian leap year rule
• Almost all professional accounting systems offer a 13-period reporting option
• Computer accounting programs will likely be easily adjusted to 13 months
• Placing the new month (Sol) at mid-year minimizes the seasonal displacement of the traditional months
• Placing the extra day(s) at the end of the year allows all months to be identical for their first 28 days in any given year
• Leap years are every four years (in the same years we currently have leap years) and they add a 366th day to December (a Dec. 30), the same number of days the Gregorian calendar adds during a leap year

Overall, as a practical matter, this calendar effectively addresses some current concerns with the Gregorian calendar.

Unlike our current jumble of month sizes, the Sol Calendar's 28-day months can easily be remembered, and the leap year is more rationally located at the end of the year, rather than tucked after February (which hasn't been considered the end of the year for many centuries.)

Since each month's calendar is the same for the first 11 months (and identical through the 28th day every month) it's easy to remember that the 27th day of every month in 2011, for example, was a Wednesday.

Learn more here: http://www.abbottepub.com/newcal.html