Google Calendars Saved My Marriage!

Okay, it may sound a bit extreme, but let me explain…Before I ventured into starting out as a small business owner with my husband life was simple. We were happily married, regular income, cute condo, fluffy little white dog and both had regular hours working 9-5 jobs – outside of 9-5 we didn’t work it was our social time. Pretty straight forward basic life – and then we decided to have children.

It started with a move from condo to townhouse, that was pretty basic, so far so good. Once we were settled the plan started, we were expecting our first child! An exciting time but easy enough to take the 1 year maternity leave and then head back to work for a little while after then have another child – then things got interesting! Baby number two decided to come earlier than planned! All of a sudden within 3 years of moving to our new home we had two children under the age of 2! The plan had to change, paying for daycare for two children under 3 years of age and commuting to work was not going to work, so we had to get creative – enter the role of small business owner!

So now my husband worked a flexible 9-5 job that could allow me to do a couple meetings a week during the day and then the rest would have to be evenings – we could do that, right? It was easier said than done! When I was booking meetings I had to leave it as “Sure, that time works for me, but let me check with my husband” – not the most professional and confident sounding as a starting out entrepreneur. So we started making sure I had a copy of his calendar printed out and bringing that with me, but then if he added something after I printed we’d be double booked which didn’t work. I was driving him crazy not only calling him all the time while he was trying to work but also it was the fight of who booked first and who’s had to be rescheduled.

Now we were at a challenge. How do I look like a confident entrepreneur that’s able to make appointments without having to check in with her husband and rally for who’s appointment was more important? Google calendars to the rescue! My technologically inclined husband saved the day – we upgraded me to a smartphone (he was already there) and then both got set up with a Google Calendar and shared our calendars with each other so we could always see the most current calendar, and voila! No more double bookings! Now my husband wasn’t pulling his hair out every time I double booked us by trying to arrange “get to know you” coffee appointments. Thus, Google Calendars saved our marriage.

This is just one example of the great tools out there to get a small business owner, particularly a “mom-preneur”, up and running with ease. The technology available to help mom-preneurs and small business owners is amazing and something everyone should stay open to, it’s amazing how something as simple as a calendar can simplify things!

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This entry was posted by Anna Kouwenberg on Friday, July 26th, 2013 at 10:28 am and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.