There are times when things are so hectic that 9 am becomes 5 pm, Monday becomes Friday, and the first day of the month becomes the last before you can even turn around. Read the rest of this entry »
When I sit down at my computer each morning, I always have plenty of emails asking me to work on short-term projects: a connection that has to be made today, a round of revisions that needs to be made immediately, a phone call that really ought to have happened last night, etc. Because of how immediate all of these requests are, it’s easy to get lost in them and let my long-term projects fall by the wayside. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: long-term project, priority, schedule
Do you ever wonder what is keeping you from making progress toward your goals? Perhaps you’ve set up a schedule for yourself, outlining the things you need to do each day so that you focus on the most important tasks related to your business, but somehow, you still seem to be falling short. Maybe the solution is not in the lack of planning and foresight on your part, but rather the lack of clarity around the things that need to be done. Read the rest of this entry »
When you’re working on your own, setting up appointments can take you away from more important tasks. Even if the appointment itself is something crucial — a meeting with a client to go over a new project’s specs, say — the back and forth of trying to find a time that works for both of you can delay your ability to get down to business. BookFresh provides an alternative that can let your clients choose a time to talk to you that works for both of you. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: bookfresh, schedule, scheduling
One of the advantages of working from home is the flexible schedule. No matter how many things you need to accomplish, or how many simultaneous projects you have, you can still control when you can perform certain tasks, as well as how long they take. While this is more true of freelancing than it is for employees, it’s this schedule flexibility that makes the prospect of teleworking more attractive.
Whether it’s a do-it-yourself renovation of your home office, a one-month trip, or participating in NaNoWriMo, there’s always the big, personal project that you’re trying to fit in your schedule. How do you make sure that it won’t have much of a negative impact on your work? Read the rest of this entry »
Let’s face it – we are not web working machines. There are several forces that are going against our productivity. These include random distractions, illness, noise, and even the fear of getting started. I’m very familiar with this problem, because even if I apply everything I know about productivity and work habits, I sometimes fall short.
So what do we do if we can’t afford to fall into an unproductive day? In this case, prevention is better than cure. We need to develop systems that will prevent unproductive days, weeks, or moments take over our working lives. We may not be productive 100 percent of the time, but there are some things we can do to develop better work habits:
You need to schedule back-to-back demos with different tech companies. Or you want to hold “virtual office hours” for lead generation and effortlessly book them based on your actual availabilities each week. You don’t have a personal assistant. So what do you do?
First, TimeDriver connects with either your Microsoft Outlook or Google Calendar. For those of you using iCal (like me), you can sync your iCal with Google Calendar using SpanningSync to take advantage of this personal appointment scheduling system. The company says they still plan on supporting Salesforce and Lotus Notes in the near future but they are adding the most popular calendaring programs first.
Next, you use TimeDriver’s calendaring page to indicate blocks of time when you’d like to schedule appointments by dragging from the start to the end time. The system syncs up with your overall calendar and immediately blacks out times where you already have something else scheduled and will continue to do so as you add any additional events or appointments to your personal calendar.
Then you can generate a link that you can share with others to schedule their appointments with you. So if you are working on scheduling back-to-back demos with tech companies, the system will email individual messages to each company rep with an embedded button that brings each person to their own private page with your invitation.
From there, they can click over to view open dates and times for scheduling a demo with you, add any notes, and submit the information into the system. The date and time they choose is automatically removed from the availablitilites that others will see.
If you are soliciting leads on your web site or even your LinkedIn page and are offering to speak with people for a free assessment of their needs with the hopes of landing some new clients, you can embed the scheduling link on your Web site. When people click on it, they are led to the TimeDriver system to schedule a phoner with you.
In a nutshell, the process for setting up TimeDriver is:
1. Name your event.
2. Choose whether it will be by phone or a face-to-face meeting.
3. Pick a duration for the event.
4. Compose your invitation message (photo or logo optional). You can even add a qualifying question to get information in advance.
5. Pick your windows of availability.
6. Get scheduling link or send out emails for the activity you’ve set up.
What TimeDriver does not do is coordinate scheduling for multiple people. The company feels there are enough players in that area.
The TimeDriver system does track all recipients of the emails you send including who has responded, who has looked at your invitation but hasn’t responded and who hasn’t looked at all. You can trigger a followup message to those who haven’t yet confirmed a date and time. The system also accounts for each person’s time zone based on their machine settings.
Currently in Alpha is an integrated Outlook add-on that inserts a scheduling link into emails composed through the program.
Personally, I can see using TimeDriver for:
1. Letting people schedule 1/2 hour free consultations with me via my LinkedIn page and web site to cultivate new clients.
2. Scheduling check-in calls with clients in clusters so I can be more efficient about direct contact with them to supplement the more-typical daily emails.
3. Booking more Web app demos with tech companies in neat blocks of time so I can be incredibly productive.
You can pre-register for TimeDriver’s open beta at their site. Doors open on August 25th. The basic TimeDriver service is free.
Tags: appointments, booking, schedule, scheduling, timedriver, timetrade
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Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
