Dream & Do

Why Google Calendar is your friend and how to use it for success

Dream & DoComment

Maybe being organised isn’t in your true “nature”, but unfortunately it’s just a skill you’re going to have to nail to make this business thing work. Until you have the money to be able to hire an executive assistant, office manager, or someone to “be your brain”, it’s all on you!

At Dream & Do, we use Google Calendar because our emails and drive is powered by Google. Every time you schedule a meeting or phone chat, put it in the calendar and invite the participants by entering their email addresses. You can see when they’ve accepted the RSVP too. That way everyone is accountable. If you need to remember to email or call someone, you can schedule it in and set yourself a reminder to pop up on your phone or computer 10 minutes before.

Promising meeting times to clients and then realising a clash and not being able to deliver is not great for trying to create positive relationships. Everyone’s busy these days and the world is only getting crazier, so now is the time to put systems in place to ensure you’re not feeling stressed and overwhelmed by your calendar.

COO of Dream & Do, Andrew Shelton, says using Google Apps is a “no-brainer” for any new business: “For $10 per user per month with email, (near) unlimited cloud storage, business applications (spreadsheets, word processors), calendar, chat plus a thousand other cool things. You have the ability to access emails and view/share documents from any computer or mobile device plus the cloud back-up storage is no longer a nice-to-have but rather a necessity for any business.”

Speaking of Google apps, the Dream Team use Google Chat in Google Hangouts to talk amongst ourselves while we’re in or away from the office. It’s not that we’re antisocial – in fact, we love a good chat. It’s that we often have so many cool links to share with each other during the day, that we need an avenue to do so without clogging up our email accounts and motivating the guys at the desks behind us to yell ‘Shush!’

If you’re using Gmail, we highly recommend Google Chat as a way of communicating with your staff when need be. We all know how crazy our email accounts can get, and that’s without the quick emails like ‘Just checking you’ve completed this thing I told you to do’ and ‘We’re all going for lunch at McDonald’s’.

Allow your email account to take a deep breath.