You, Me and a Crazy Schedule

As some of you may know, I run a small IT consulting business with my husband, and that can be a challenge sometimes. For us, it is sometimes a challenge to figure out what we are both working on and how our schedule actually works together. We decided a while ago that one way to try and keep our schedule known to the other was to start using Google Calendar for a lot of the things that we do. One of the key steps that we did for that was to set up a Gmail account for the business, and that is where we manage a lot of our schedule.

Yes, managing two schedules for work as well as personal life can be a challenge, but we decided that we would be putting all the different things onto one calendar so that the two of us can see what is going on. Sure, the calendar can look a little busy sometimes, but at least we both know that is going on, and that does help a lot. It also means that if there is a conference coming up or even bills that need to be paid, they are entered into the calendar. The important thing to remember is to turn off the reminders on events that are just notes and not something that is time specific.

The calendar has given the two of us a better understanding of the overall schedule that we are dealing with, and it helps a lot. I know that there are times when I look at the calendar can start laughing because it just seems like there are weeks when there are so many things on it and then another week it is pretty quiet. The quiet weeks may look quite, but those are normally weeks when bigger things are happening, and we are doing other tasks that need to be done.

Our calendar is synced to both of our phones so that we have it with us when we aren’t home because that also helped let the other one know, what is going on. We found that making sure that even the little things are noted means that it is easier to schedule client meetings when we know what else is going on in our lives. The one thing that needed to be on the calendar was all the holidays because without those you could be scheduling a weekend of work when it’s a holiday weekend and people really don’t want to work that weekend. Besides having the calendar on our phones, I also have a paper copy of it because it means that if I can on the phone with someone I can quickly see what is going on without having to try and check my calendar which is also on the device I am using for the conversation.

One day I was looking at our calendar and someone asked me how many kids we had because we were so busy. I explained that we didn’t have any kids but when you are managing two work lives, two personal lives and things we do together the calendar can look a little crazy depending on when you see it. Yes, some people may laugh at our calendar, but it works for us and that is what is important. We have found a method of keeping track of the different things in our lives, and it works for us. It may not work for everyone, but that is fine because every is different.