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Use Your Calendar App to Snag the Best Bargains

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Everyone at some point sees a garage sale flier and takes interest, only to forget about it minutes later. With so much going on in your life, these little bargains are easy to miss. The same goes for any kind of sale, really — thrift stores, clothing brands, bake sales, etc. Whenever you come across an exciting sale, you can integrate it seamlessly into your schedule via your calendar application.

1. Follow Public Sale Calendars

Organizations that regularly hold these events (recreation centers, religious communities, etc.) usually have a publicly-viewable calendar. This can be a physical one on a bulletin board in town or an easily-accessible digital one. The latter is more common as time goes on and is incredibly convenient to follow. Then, depending on the app, you can subscribe to be notified of new postings or upcoming events.

Sometimes you’ll get lucky and find a fully-integrable calendar for you to add to your app alongside your personal one. Remember that many people have similar interests as you, and you may find some helpful bargain-hunting communities online. Along with these opportunities come plenty of resources on the subject. If they have a shared calendar, they’ll do a lot of the work.

2. Note Every Sale That Catches Your Eye

Even if it draws you at first glance, not every sale will grab you enough to want to go. But you never know what you might find sitting in the back of a thrift store or outlet mall. So it’s worth taking a slight detour to see what a sale is all about, if it’s even of tangential interest. Then, whether you end up going or not, just jot down (or snap a picture of) the information for later.

Then, you can enter it into your calendar and reconsider as it approaches. Is it worth fitting the potential bargains in among your other duties? You can also take this time to look into the event a little more and get more information. If you end up removing it from your schedule, this experience will still help you learn more about bargain-hunting.

3. Separate Them Into Categories

Once your calendar starts to fill up, the different events can get confusing. Ideally, you’ll want to know which are higher priority and what types of items you’ll find just from a glance. Most calendar apps have multiple categorization options to make this happen. Depending on your platform, you can label events by type, color, tag, importance/urgency, topic, etc.

You can, for example, mark all sales of your favorite categories (like video games or cookware) as a specific color. Then, when you open your calendar for the month, you can see that color and immediately recognize what it stands for. Adding a textual tag (“church,” “garage”) can help you separate these events even further based on location or type. The more identifiable each category is, the easier it is to differentiate sales without reviewing each one visually.

4. Fit Sales Events Into Your Established Schedule

You can decide which events you want to move forward with, fitting in among your other responsibilities. Luckily, you don’t necessarily have to do the math if your calendar app has a visual editing component. You only need to click and drag things around to reschedule them in many instances. Then it won’t feel like you’re wasting time (which you aren’t!) by going to a sale — it’s already scheduled.

The mental effect of this is perhaps the most powerful part. People often don’t devote the time they need to the things they love without doing something similar. Your responsibilities are already set in stone, so there’s no reason not to fit these things around them. Scheduling free time helps balance work and life and gives it relative psychological importance for completion.

5. Get the Important Things Out of the Way First

It’s not always possible to fit the exciting things in among your more essential duties. However, it is possible to get the latter done first to open up your schedule later on. This is the objective of the MIT time management strategy — prioritize more essential tasks to complete them before moving on. This helps particularly if you get overwhelmed easily because you’ll only focus on a few tasks at a time.

As a result, you’ll be able to be more productive in completing what you need to complete. In addition, it saves mental bandwidth so you don’t burn yourself out early and time you can spend shopping afterward. The best part is lessening your anxiety when taking that time— you know you’ve already been productive today.

It sounds unnecessary to track sales on your personal calendar, but it is perfect for saving money. As long as you spend consciously, it can make a big difference in your finances. And calendar apps are genuinely well suited for such a task, so it’s a no-brainer if you’re passionate about saving. So next time you see a garage sale flier, put it in your calendar, and you may discover something wonderful.

Image Credit: by Pixabay; Pexels; Thank you!

Use Your Calendar App to Snag the Best Bargains was originally published on Calendar by Abby Miller

Great Shared Calendar Apps for Startups

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Great Shared Calendar Apps for Startups

app It may not be at the top of your priorities, but sharing a Calendar with the rest of the folks in your startup is a must. After all, it’s the best way to keep everyone on the same page. It also boosts productivity and prevents precious time from being wasted. But, creating and managing your team’s calendar starts and ends with the right calendar app. And, here are ten of the best options for startups.

1. Calendar

Calendar is a time management and scheduling tool that eliminates those lengthy back-and-forth communications when setting up an event. Instead, share the app’s scheduling link, and it does the rest of the work for you. It’s not magic, if you’re wondering. Instead, Calendar relies on machine learning so that it will make smart suggestions on how to schedule your next meeting.

But, that’s just scratching the surface. Calendar also uses machine learning so that you can add new events quickly. It’s also time zone friendly, meaning that it takes care of availability for you — as opposed to you attempting to figure this when traveling or scheduling meetings with remote teams. Finally, Calendar integrates with your Apple, Google, and Office 365 calendars so that you have one real-time view of your life.

2. Google Calendar

Is this an obvious choice? Sure. But, Google Calendar has proven to be one of the best online calendars on the market. Mainly this is because it’s easy to use and comes packed with features that allow you to get the most out of it, such as color-coding and sharing your calendar via email or embedded link.

Google Calendar also allows you to add your team’s calendars, create out-of-office messages, and add events with natural language. Also, because it’s part of the Google suite of tools, your events from Gmail are automatically added to your calendar. And, you can share and collaborate on docs, spreadsheets, Keep, and Jamboard.

Even if you can’t use the free version, this is still an affordable option. Business plans start at just $5 per month.

3. Any.do

Any.do is more than just a calendar app. It’s one of the best tools to house your agenda, to-dos, and goals. As a result, it’s arguably one of the best options to keep you and your team organized and productive.

There are also some pretty cool features within the app. For example, there are location-based reminders and the option to receive your agenda every morning. In addition, the color-coded dots for all of the events in your calendar make it easy to identify what you have on the docket for the day.

Any.do does have a free version. However, for teams, you may want to switch to the premium plan, which starts at $2.99 per month.

4. Teamup

This tool was designed specifically with groups in mind. As a result, you can schedule assignments, track progress in real-time, and share calendars with everyone on your team. And, you can organize all of this information by using color-coded sub-calendars.

One of my favorite things about Teamup is that you don’t need an account to access your calendar. That means anyone you share your calendar with a view without having to waste time logging in. Best of all, for small teams, it’s free. For larger one’s plans start at just $8/month,

5. Calendly

Calendly is another calendar app that makes scheduling a whole lot less stressful. Less stress because it reviews your existing calendars, and checks your availability. You then share your availability with others, and they pick a time when they’re free.

You can then set buffers between meetings and block last-minute meetings requests. There’s also time zone detection, and it works with a wide range of apps like Zapier, Salesforce, GoToMeeting, and Stripe.

The basic plan is free. But, if your startup has various event types planned each month, you’ll need to get with a paid plan. The premium version is $8 per user/per month.

6. Float

Float is a scheduling and planning tool. It provides real-time scheduling updates and the ability to edit events through drop-and-drag. You can also create recurring events and receive reports to help you improve your efforts.

There are also features like time-off tracking and overtime alerts for your full-time staff. But, if you’re working with contractors, you add short-term gigs. It also plays nice with iOS, Android, Slack, and Zapier. And, there’s a flat fee of $5 per person scheduled per month.

7. Plan

Described as part calendar and part project manager, Plan goes beyond creating and sharing a team calendar. There’s the ability to create agendas and a working timeline. The team feed can be useful when working together on a project since you can see what’s been completed and solicit ideas.

Plan organizes all of the data you have stored in your calendar, email, Salesforce, Zendesk, and Github. Doing so means that all relevant projects and scheduling information are in one convenient location. Because of this, teams report that they save 15 hours per week.

The plan is free if your startup has no more than four users. For larger groups, the premium plan is $6.67 per user per month.

8. Woven

Woven is an intelligent calendar app that uses a visual graph for scheduling and planning. As a result, you can see how you’re spending your time so that you can better manage your days. The app also comes with a virtual assistant that handles all of your scheduling for you.

It also lets your team collaborate on any upcoming events. You can share your schedule via email, text, and Slack to speed up the scheduling process. As of now, Woven syncs seamlessly with Google and G Suite calendars. However, the free tool is working on Office 365 integration.

9. Teamweek

Teamweek is another tool designed with teams in mind. It also takes a more visual approach to planning and scheduling the projects within your startup. Teamweek lets you see what everyone is working on, as well as their progress so that you can hit the goals you’ve set.

Additional features include project roadmaps and timelines for your team. There’s a free plan if you have fewer than five people. But, for larger teams, you’ll have to select a paid plan for $39/month.

10. Trello

Trello is a project management tool. Because of this, it’s ideal for assigning and keeping tabs on tasks and projects. But, what sets it apart from other similar tools is that it uses digital boards.

How does this work exactly? Well, let’s say that you handed off an assignment to someone. You would place a card on the board. Now, when switching to the calendar view, you can see when the task is due. Additionally, you’ll be able to see all due dates on that specific day, week, or month.

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