As I’ve been becoming busier, I’ve started needing to implement more complex strategies and automate more to keep on top of what I need to get done.  There’s a lot involved in running a small business!

The tool that I’ve been relying on the longest is Google Calendar.  I started using that when I was a piano teacher many years ago and juggling fifteen students/week.  It changed my life to be able to schedule events on a live online calendar.  With Google Calendar I was easily able to see the layout of my clients for the week.  I was able to tell people what times I had available at a glance.  I was able to schedule recurring events, such as weekly lessons, and I was able to send my clients invites, and I was able to send myself reminders.   Getting email reminders was vital with my busy schedule.  It is even more vital for me these days.  I don’t think I could keep the schedule I have without it.

I now keep several calendars – my main calendar where I schedule the events I am attending, my calendar that tells me what times I’ve blocked off for potentially scheduling clients, my calendar that is a placeholder so that I don’t schedule recurring events when I have another event coming up in the future, the calendar I share with my housemates about friends visiting, the calendar I share with my co-parent about the kids, etc.   My friends and clients share their calendars with me, so that I can schedule things with them when they are available.

This system worked fabulously for me for many years.  However, as of these past few months, it has not been enough to keep me organized.  I have recently been getting several clients at once who need to schedule appointments for consultations, sample sessions, and recurring sessions.

Initially I had been manually looking through my calendar and figuring out when to offer each person every time someone new contacted me, and offering times that aren’t overlapping with times that I’ve offered other people.  Doing that is complicated and time consuming.  So I’ve started using Time Trade.   Time trade is wonderful.  I enter all of the times I’m available once, and any client can pick from any time.  This saves me a lot of time, not having to do the same task over and over.  It also allows me to present my clients and potential clients with a much wider range of available options, since I can offer the same times and days to multiple clients without running into an awkward situation where both sign up for the same time.

Additionally, I’ve found my Time Trade calendar great for scheduling coffee dates and other events with friends!  I’ve gotten very spoiled now.  Whenever a friend wants to get together, I just send them a link to my Time Trade calendar.  I no longer have to repeatedly calculate when I’m free!   It also automatically sends reminders to both myself and my clients/friends, and integrates with my Google Calendar, putting not only the time of the appointment, but also all of the information entered by the person making the appointment, including their phone number and email address.

There are two services I’ve just started using that I’ve liked quite a bit.  One is LetterMeLater, and the other is Google Streak.  Both of these services allow me to schedule emails to be sent later.  This is fabulous.  I primarily use this feature to set reminders for myself and my clients.   I cleared out my entire inbox using these services.  Instead of leaving messages sitting in there indefinitely, I went through and either dealt with them, or archived them and set myself a Streak reminder to look into it later.   The advantage of LetterMeLater is that you can set up recurring reminders with it.  So its really great for clients who are on a regular schedule who want reminders.  I haven’t found a way to schedule recurring events with Time Trade, so LetterMeLater helps me get reminders to my clients who are not scheduling by the week.  Streak has a list of many other features that help small business owners.  I aim to experiment with more of them over the next few weeks.  I created am additional free gmail address that I set to forward automatically to my regular account, which I gave the name of “Reminder,” so now when I send myself reminders, they are very clearly labeled.  I use Gmail Priority Inbox so that I can set the reminder emails to show up at the top of my inbox.  When the reminders come up an I don’t want to deal with them until later, I archive them and send new reminders.

Another tool I’ve been using is a Pomodoro timer.  Pomodoro is a technique that helps with Productivity, but encouraging you to work in sprints of 25 minutes of focus and 5 minutes relaxation.  I tried several different pomodoro programs, and eventually ended up settling on Focus Booster.  When I’m having a very hard time focusing, I put on some background music, start the timer, and get to work.  My only problem with the timers I’ve found is that you can’t pause the break so that you can finish the task you’re doing.  If any of you know about a Pomodoro timer that lets you do this, please let me know!

One more fun tool that I use is Dual N Back.  Dual N Back is a tool for improving your memory.  Its not nearly as directly related to productivity as the others, but its really great to have a game to play that actually increases your short term memory and fluid intelligence.  I’ve been doing it for several months now, and I’m noticing some differences.  My focus has definitely improved, although I do a lot of practices that might be helping with this, such as Internal Family Systems and meditation.  The Dual N Back specific thing that I noticed recently was that I was able to capture what someone was saying to me in typing while they were talking too fast for me to keep up with – my brain was able to hold the pattern much longer than it would have in the past, and I could tell that it was using the same stack technique that I use to recall the order in Dual N Back.

That’s the majority of my new finds for now!  If you know any other web based productivity tools that have changed your life, I strongly encourage you to add them to the comments.

Shannon Friedman

Freedom from Internal Conflict

From Bronnie Ware’s regrets of the dying:

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again. 

When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying. 

Being part of Positive Vector has really brought home for me how true this is.  I’ve been on a steady positive incline of increased happiness over the past few years, which has been shooting up more and more dramatically over the past couple of years.

There is a lot to happiness.  A lot of it is choice.  Choice about happiness is more complex than I used to think.  Something I’m seeing with my new company is how hard people can try.  I’d had a coaching business before this, and it did not fly.  This time, I’m working with partners, and they work like crazy!  With this energy, I’ve been working really hard too, and things are going extremely well.  I feel engaged and happy, and I have a great appreciation for my partners.  We keep each other’s enthusiasm up.  We share exciting finds, help each other through problems, and keep all of our bases covered.  The personal growth starts at home.  We’re constantly working to help each other grow, be happier and more fulfilled, and to go out and do interesting and exciting things in the world.

All of these points Bronnie makes come together for my happiness.  I’m living a life that is true to myself, I do work that I enjoy, my partners and I are extremely open with each other about our feelings, they are my close friends, and I am letting myself be happy.  It has been an interesting journey to get here, I’ve learned a lot.  I’ve overcome years of depression, and have proven to myself that you really can change, especially with help.

Becoming happier can be a simple mental technique, it can be Internal Family Systems counseling, it can be hard work, it can be smart work, it can be medicine.  Its important to keep trying.  Shed those layers of bad mental programming to make yourself happy.  Improve your diet to make yourself happy (that’s a big one).  Spend your time with people you find fun, inspirational, relaxing, and make you happy in whatever way works best for you.  You can fully feel with all of your senses the pleasure you have in your life.

Bronnie says it best:

Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness.

 

This post is part of the series: What to Do Before You Die.

- Shannon Friedman

Find your passion.