5 Ways To "Re-Boot" Our #Calendar [#CalendarReform Blog]

 

Is our calendar perfect? Few would argue that it is. 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.

But it turns out, there are many, many other - arguably better - ideas to reform it and make how we mark time more predictable and easier.

Here are just FIVE:

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.

Our #Calendar Is Garbage. Here's How To Fix It

Our Gregorian Calendar has a problem. 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 had to look at a calendar, or Google it, didn't you?) 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 is the Thirty-Eleven Calendar.

In this modern calendar reform proposal, each month (the first 11) 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 almost all months are equal in length and each month 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 Abbott ePublishing

eBook Features Calendar Reform Concepts

A new eBook covers many of the new calendar concepts discussed in this blog over the years.

"A New Calendar for the World" features many excellent calendar reform ideas, set amongst the backdrop the failed "End of the Age" event in 2012. Whether the age actually will end in the future (and the book is neutral on that matter - and in fact barely deals with these predictions) the time may indeed be ripe for a new calendar, as this blog has argued in the past.

Among the ideas floated in the eBook (which costs only $1.99) are:

The 13-Moon Calendar: Inspired by the Maya

The Symmetry454 Calendar: Beautiful Symmetry

The 13-month "Sol" Calendar: Updating an Old Idea

The New Earth Calendar: A Worthy Hybrid

The 30x11 Calendar: A Gentle Update of our Calendar

The book also features numerous "experimental" calendars that are more than a useless exercise. They are actually creative, and are good starting points for discussions on how our calendar can serve human beings, and not the other way around.

The eBook is published by Abbott ePublishing and can be bought at http://www.abbottepub.com/newcal.html.

Can Our #Calendar Make Sense? Meet The 30x11 Calendar!

Our calendar has a problem. Each month of our current calendar varies in length: 31, 28/29, 31, 30, 31, etc. Many people have to look at a printed calendar or recite a silly rhyme to remember month lengths.

Because of the length of months vary, 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, 2020 fall on? It was a Monday. But you had to look at a calendar, or Google it, didn't you?)

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 is the Thirty-Eleven (30x11) Calendar.

In this modern calendar reform proposal, each month (the first 11) would have 30 days. December, the 12th month, 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. That stays the same.)

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, so they failed to get off the ground.

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 almost all months are equal in length and each month 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. Business and event planning would be a lot easier this way.

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.

New Year... Same Crappy Calendar? We Can Do Better! [Calendar Reform Blog]

It's a new year! And millions of us are literally turning the page onto our new, 2021 calendars. But by doing so, we're carrying the same problems we had with our old calendars over into a new year.

And what problems are those?

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 Foolish Calendar

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 great 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 existed in 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 exactly 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 (March is always the 61st day of the year) 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.

Can Our #Calendar Make Sense? Meet The #30x11Calendar [#CalendarReform blog]

Our calendar has a problem. Each month of our current calendar varies in length: 31, 28/29, 31, 30, 31, etc. Many people have to look at a printed calendar or recite a silly 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 had to look at a calendar, or Google it, didn't you?) 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 is the Thirty-Eleven (30x11) Calendar.

In this modern calendar reform proposal, each month (the first 11) would have 30 days. December, the 12th month, 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 almost all months are equal in length and each month 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.

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.

New Year, Same Old Calendar? Time For A Change! [Calendar Reform Blog]

It's a new year! And millions are literally turning the page onto our new, 2017 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.

Our #Calendar Is Garbage. Here's How To Fix It

Our Gregorian Calendar has a problem. 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 had to look at a calendar, or Google it, didn't you?) 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 is the Thirty-Eleven Calendar.

In this modern calendar reform proposal, each month (the first 11) 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 almost all months are equal in length and each month 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.

A Logical Calendar Reform Concept Worth Considering [#CalendarReform Blog]

What if the last day of July was July 30th, every single year, and the 210th day of the year, every single year?

That's the way it would be if we adopted the "Thirty-eleven" (30x11) Calendar, a simple, logical and rational calendar reform proposal that's worth considering.

The calendar seeks to simplify the Gregorian calendar by giving the first 11 of the 12 months 30 days each. The last month, December, gets 35, keeping the 365-day calendar year we have now. In leap years (which remain the same as now) we get a 36-day December.

The benefit of this idea is simplicity. With 30 days in each month, it would be easy to determine, say, that the 150th day of the year would be the last day of the 5th month - May 30. In fact, for the first half of the calendar year, the last days of the month are the 30th, 60th, 90th, 120th, 150th, and 180th days of the year. Such numbering allows easy access to any day of the year.

Another quirk of the calendar is that each month within a calendar year starts two weekdays after the previous month. If January, for example, would start on a Sunday (as it will in the 2023 Gregorian Calendar) then February begins on a Tuesday, March on a Thursday, April on a Saturday and May on a Monday. It's very easy to determine, therefore, May 30 would be the 150th day of the month, and a Tuesday.

Drawbacks are few, and include a "long" December, which would have 35 or 36 days - numbers that are hard to get used to - and the seasons would not begin on the same days they do now, but would drift back about two days on the calendar. That doesn't seem too high of a price to pay, however, for a calendar that is more logical.

For more information, visit www.30x11.com.

5 Ways To "Re-Boot" Our #Calendar [#CalendarReform Blog]

Is our calendar perfect? Few would argue that it is. 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.

But it turns out, there are many, many other - arguably better - ideas to reform it and make how we mark time more predictable and easier.

Here are just FIVE:

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.

Can Our #Calendar Make Sense? Meet The #30x11Calendar [#CalendarReform blog]

Our Gregorian Calendar has a problem. 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 had to look at a calendar, or Google it, didn't you?) 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 is the Thirty-Eleven Calendar.

In this modern calendar reform proposal, each month (the first 11) 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 almost all months are equal in length and each month 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.

31, 28, 31, 30? What is that? Our Idiotic #Calendar

When is (or was) Feb. 1? Most would say, "Today, Monday."

For proponents of the 30x11 Calendar and the Common-Civil-Calendar, January should have ended on the 30th day of the month, making the 31st their "Feb. 1."

For supporters of the Symmetry454 Calendar, New Earth Calendar, and the 13-month Sol Calendar (and other 13-month, 28-day month proposals,) Sunday, Jan. 29, was the day for welcoming February (though the Symmetry454 and New Earth calendars would have called it a "Monday," since all weeks in these calendars start on Mondays.)

These excellent calendar reform ideas represent a call for societal change - a change in how we view the year.

The one message they all convey comes across loud and clear: the Gregorian months - which start 2015 numbered in this way: 31, 28, 31, 30 - cry out for symmetry, order and a logical progression of days.

It's not too hard to envision a different, better, way to number our months, thanks to many visionary reformers who have proposed calendar change on a global scale. We should listen to what they have to say.

Learn more at Abbott ePublishing.

Why isn't our #calendar logical? A simple proposal for reform.

March 1 will be the 60th day of the year. So why can't it be the last day of the second month?

That's the question the 30x11 ("Thirty-eleven") calendar asks. The calendar reform proposal seeks to simplify the Gregorian calendar by giving 11 of the 12 months 30 days each. The last month, December, gets 35, keeping the 365-day calendar year we have now. In leap years (which remain the same as now) we get a 36-day December.

The benefit of this idea is simplicity. With 30 days in each month, it would be easy to determine, say, that the 150th day of the year would be the last day of the 5th month - May 30. In fact, for the first half of the calendar year, the last days of the month are the 30th, 60th, 90th, 120th, 150th, and 180th days of the year. Such numbering allows easy access to any day of the year.

Another quirk of the calendar is that each month within a calendar year starts two weekdays after the previous month. If January, for example, would start on a Sunday (as it does in the 2006 Gregorian calendar) then February begins on a Tuesday, March on a Thursday, April on a Saturday and May on a Monday. It's very easy to determine, therefore, that May 30 would be the 150th day of the month and a Tuesday.

Drawbacks to this proposal are few, and include a "long" December, which would have 35 or 36 days - numbers that are hard to get used to (and some would think we added days to the year's length, which isn't the case) and the seasons would not begin on the same days they do now, but would drift back about two days on the calendar. That doesn't seem too high of a price to pay, however, for a calendar that is more logical and actually makes sense!

For more information, visit www.30x11.com.

Our #calendar has huge problems. But there's a solution!

Our Gregorian Calendar has a problem. 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 had to look at a calendar, or Google it, didn't you?) 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 is the Thirty-Eleven Calendar.

In this modern calendar reform proposal, each month (the first 11) 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 almost all months are equal in length and each month 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.