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29 JANUARY 2014
Gone are the days of taking notes on paper and hardcover calendars. Technology is here to help us out in this aspect and with a wide range of applications. If you still have doubts about digitising your agenda, here is a review of the different options and main features available to organise your work. Either if you are an entrepreneur launching your own business or if your project has been running for a while, you can choose the option that best suits your needs.
These are the minimum features you should have in the application of your choice:
The possibility of adding an event easily by clicking on the calendar and choosing the specific time. You must also have the option to edit it later: place, privacy of the event, invited guests, etc.
The possibility of having a shortcut to view all the appointments, tasks and annotations.
The option to share it with other users and work together in real time, as well as adding information at any time.
It must have a notification service.
It must have an advanced search system.
The ability to access from any device.
Following these six basic guidelines, we have made a selection of the most useful apps for entrepreneurs:
Google Calendar
It's one of the most widespread applications due to its large number of features. Google Calendar is available in two versions for mobile devices: a basic version and an optimised version, available for Android, iPhone and Palm webOS devices. Currently the basic version only allows you view your calendars and add new events.
The popularity of this app is mainly due to all its features, including:
It offers multiple views (day, week, month, several days and agenda), with the option to print each one of them. This is a clear advance over the traditional paper datebook, since to get different views it would be necessary to duplicate information.
It is possible to have multiple agendas in one: you can define, for example, a personal agenda, a work agenda and another one for leisure activities, being able to activate and deactivate them as needed. With this feature, for instance, you can avoid the coincidence of events.
It includes a notification service for each one of the events: the user can be alerted via e-mail, with a pop-up window or with a mobile phone SMS.
You have the possibility to synchronise the calendar with other devices. It's a very simple process, so it's very useful.
It integrates a handy search engine that, for example, allows you to seek information about a meeting you don't remember when it took place.
Mysistant
This app, available for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, goes a few steps beyond the basic functionalities. Mysistant offers added services such as weather forecasts, search for restaurants, petrol stations or car parks in the area, and even different traffic routes to get to these places.
The application is divided into three sections:
MY Calendar: a direct access to your scheduled appointments.
MY Tasks: a direct access to your tasks (pending, completed, priority.)
MY Around: find out places and services next to you in a quick, practical and visual way.
Icebergs
Besides apps, there are also web pages designed to facilitate the task of organising ourselves. Prominent among these is Iceberg, a cloud-based paid service which takes less than a minute to set-up. The key of this site is the visual organisation of all your tasks, documents, etc. In addition, they send daily notices of your pending tasks.
Iceberg offers three services:
Basic – 0.5 Gb of storage and unlimited users, among other features.
Pro – for 9.99 dollars per month you get 2 Gb and advanced search and edition.
Teams – for 49.99 dollars per month you get 10 Gb of storage, multiple accounts, and advanced search and edition, besides the possibility of enabling all your collaborators to work in real time and synchronised.
Other alternatives
The organisational issue is also being addressed by different public administrations. Thus we find websites such as Bilib, from the Technology Support Centre for Entrepreneurs of Castilla La Mancha, which has a catalogue of applications designed to improve the overall experience of the entrepreneur.
In terms of organisation and content publishing we find Alfresco, Leto DMS and Nuxeo DM, which do not fit into the category of digital agendas but clarify and order the contents of our company in a simple way. They are useful to update and keep old versions of documents, as well as to track changes in documents and see who has modified them.
It is clear that there are no economic or knowledge excuses justifying a poor organisation in our day to day. So, let's get down to it!
