Calendars, schedules, deadlines: how work-at-home writers organize, part deux

In the part one of this series, I detail the systems I’ve come to adopt to manage my schedule. You can read all the gory details here, but basically, I use no paper calendars – my system is all digital, a combination of:

• Google Calendar: three schedules, work, personal and Mrs. Emma’s, each color-coded, accessible via desktop or smart phone and lives on the cloud
• Tiny Calendar, a mobile app that’s nicer and more intuitive than Google’s native mobile interface, which kind of clunky. It’s like a streamlined remote control for Google Calendar
• Evernote: interactive, searchable digital notes, to which you can add text or clip images, PDFs, websites, etc. It has its own reminder system, is accessible via desktop or smart phone and lives on the cloud

This plan works for me because I am notoriously terrible with paper calendars and need the virtual prodding digital provides. I was curious how other work-at-home pros organized themselves, so I asked around.

Mostly paper, some digital.

Unlike me, Felicia Lowenstein Niven is unafraid of paper. In fact, she prefers it. “It’s very tactile, I like writing things down. Have always been that way. Prefer a paper book over Kindle,” she said.

In scheduling, it’s very much a matter of what works. I barely write anything on paper. Even my shopping lists are on my phone. But paper still looms large for Felicia, a New Jersey-based writer, author and public relations idea maker. “I enjoy the process. I think I’ll always put pen to paper. I guess it’s a comfort thing, something that puts my head in right space.”

She maintains a Word doc with all clients, jobs needed for this week and other jobs in the queue but not due this week. She updates it every Sunday and tweaks it as the week progresses. It’s her master list and, since it’s digital, is included in regular backups.

Keeping her days organized is a bit more traditional. “I use index cards,” she told me.

“Actual, paper index cards?” I inquired.

“Actual, paper index cards,” she confirmed. “I started with Post-It notes but they got too expensive,” she said. Along with her paper planner, she uses the cards to track details of each day’s tasks. “I tried other methods, like a note pad, but it was always too much take in all at once. The cards break everything down into manageable chunks, each assignment at a granular level. Whether I have to schedule an interview, write a draft, whatever. My whole day is broken up into cards. At the end of the day, I toss them and start fresh each morning,” she said.

Taped to her desk, the cards track her priorities for each day. When an emergency job pops up or a deadline changes, she can easily add a card and rearrange others. On the cards, everything she has to do that day, including meetings and appointments – but scheduled items get special treatment.

“I track meetings in two other places: iCal and the paper calendar. I used iCal without the paper calendar for a while but I ended up getting burned. For some reason, all the names of all my events disappeared. So, I knew I had meetings, but had no idea with whom or what about.”

As you might imagine, that calamity was quite a hassle, forcing her to call clients to figure out when and where all her meetings were. “Thank goodness, they were all very understanding. Everybody knows technology can be iffy. Now, I put all my events in iCal, but without a whole lot of detail. That way I get a pop-up reminder that prompts me to go to the planner for details.”

But in chatting for this post, Felicia realized she is without a backup plan for the paper calendar. “I hadn’t really thought about that. I always thought paper would be better in case the computer crashed or the electricity went out but I’m not sure what I would do,” she said.

Happy to report our conversation inspired a solution. Since then, she has been taking a photo of the paper calendar’s 30-day page spread. “It’s not perfect but at least it’s in the cloud in case all else fails.”

See, when a blogger calls and asks for an interview, you should always say ‘yes.’ Plus, it goes both ways. After my conversation with Felicia, I had to learn how to backup my own digital scheduling stuff.

Mostly digital, some paper.

That backup epiphany came more dramatically for Sandy Kreps, a blogger, writer and author based in Oklahoma. Sandy is an organization expert. Through her books and blog, Modern Simplicity, she helps busy families struggling with chaotic schedules to simplify, declutter and organize.

“Two years ago we had a house fire. Fortunately, no one was hurt but my planner had water damage and essentially the roof on top of it and I lost all that info,” Sandy recalled. “I had already started using Google Calendar, but didn’t really depend on it. I was always afraid I’d lose the data, then not know what was going on. The fire made me realize how important it is to put information in the cloud. If it’s important, I get it into either Google or Evernote, right away. I learned that lesson!” she said.

Sandy was paper-only for a while before the fire. “But I’d get into a situation where I needed to schedule something didn’t have my planner or I had it, but didn’t know my husband’s schedule. Now I use Google Calendar for both so we can see what’s going on when we’re out and about.” She also still uses a paper planner as a backup to Google and place to take notes.

With two kids, a busy career and a new book coming out this year, Sandy’s schedule is daunting enough. But she also works with some of the world’s top bloggers, including Chad Allen and Jeff Goins. She manages Jeff’s online communities, which really puts her organization system to the test. “Jeff’s schedule is really crazy. With Google Calendar, everybody sees everything, speaking engagements, webinars and so on,” she said.

She also uses Calendly, a slick and mostly free app that takes the hassle out of scheduling meetings. It puts your available timeslots on an interactive page. To schedule a meeting, you just click around the available timeslots and choose one that works. It automatically populates your Google Calendar and sends confirmation emails. “We skip the whole back-and-forth of calls and emails to get a meeting scheduled,” she said. Calendly sounds like a nice tool for work-at-home pros, taking the place of Outlook and other in-house schedulers that our cubicle-dwelling colleagues take advantage of.

Like Felicia, Sandy’s habit is to do a global review every Sunday. So far it’s working, although she did miss, once. One of the kids brought home a slip of paper from school, detailing the parent-teacher conference. “It was a simple mistake, going from paper to digital, I entered the event a month early. I showed up and wondered, why is nobody here? And here I am, writing about time management. I really messed that one up. But it’s better to be early than late,” she said. The experience also inspired an excellent blog post.

Your system? Whatever works.

Like Felicia and me, Sandy believes the right system is the one that works. “It’s really driven by personal preference. If you love planners and sticky notes, it might be hard to switch to digital. And if you’re on your computer and phone all day, you’re probably not interested in paper. When I work with people, we find a system based on their natural preference – something they’ll actually use.”

Sandy asks a lot of questions and she can usually get a feel for what’s right very quickly. “It’s almost always the simplest tool, as opposed to creating some giant system they’ll never follow anyway. So, if they are used to writing everything on Post-it notes, there’s no point forcing Google or Outlook on them. Try a paper planner or at least a notebook to keep everything in one place. I won’t set up a system that’s destined to fail,” she said.

But, for busy families, the advantages of digital quickly become apparent. “It’s important to be able to see everything at a glance. Especially with teenagers. As they get busier they can add events on their own and mom and dad can see them,” she said.

Knowing what I know about teenagers, I asked if they would actually do that. Sandy uses a bit of psychology to keep her teen on the straight and narrow. “I still put the major events into the calendar myself. But if he has a party or extracurricular activity he wants to do, it’s up to him to put it on the calendar. Otherwise, he may not be allowed to go.”

“To be fair and encourage trust, we let them see our calendars, too. If he mentions an event, I ask if he put it on the calendar yet. That reminds him to do it. Most of the time, I don’t need to remind him. He’s 13 and it’s definitely easier to get them started early. It’s actually been harder training my husband,” she said.

Good luck with that, Sandy. 🙂

=SE

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