Easy Calendar Tool

Taxes? Hey, I got an Uncle that lives in Taxes. He lives in Dallas, Taxes!
- Chico Marx in A Day at the Races

This is a beaut. I'm assuming that you have, even if you don't use, the Google Calendar. What you may not know is that you can import calendars from outside sources and incorporate them into yours.

Want an example? Do a Google search for "tax calendars." You'll find ten of them there. If you can find one that's applicable, click on "Add to Calendar." That's it. You can modify your settings to change the alarms. What does it cost you, except for an excuse for not having paid your estimated income tax, or the payroll taxes for your widget factory?

I've got my calendar set up with over a dozen subject-specific subcalendars. For example, I've got calendars for all of the publishers for whom I do regular editing work, each in a different color. When I get a gig, I enter it so that it spans from the date I receive the material until the date it's due. This enables me to see, in bright colors, all of the impending work I've got and get a picture in my head of how I'm going to schedule myself to get it done on time.

And, just for another level of reinforcement, I print out a copy of the calendars for the current month and the following month, and put them on my bulletin board. All I can tell you is that more than once it's kept me from overbooking myself and, consequently, blowing a deadline. And it's a lot easier to keep an established client than it is to find a new one.