Organizing and simplifying

Multiple calendars, multiple clients, multiple workstreams - make it make sense

6/17/20252 min read

How many Google/Outlook accounts (and the subsequent calendars) do you have?

I now have 6. Yes, SIX. (I know, I know—don’t judge.)

Two are for my clients, and four are for myself. Here’s the breakdown:

One is my “General Subscriptions” calendar—think sports, ancient newsletters I should’ve unsubscribed from in 2017, online shopping receipts, and the occasional beauty appointment.
One is my main communication channel for event registrations, tech news, and anything that makes me look like a responsible adult.
One is my Microsoft/Outlook account (which I rarely use because, let’s be honest, Teams gives me hives :-)).
One is for my accounting needs, because numbers deserve their own chaos.

At one point, it got so messy that I couldn’t keep track of anything non-client related (thankfully, client stuff lives in HubSpot, so at least someone’s organized). I REALLY needed help managing all these calendars. But alas, I don’t have a PA—unless you count the voice in my head that keeps yelling, “Check your calendar!”

Enter: Calendly

I started with Calendly for scheduling appointments. It’s simple, integrates with my calendars, and, as a proud solopreneur, I refuse to pay for tools when the free version does the trick.

Next Up: Akiflow

Then I tried Akiflow. So far, I’m a fan (but I still have a few days before I have to commit to the paid version—decisions, decisions). I love that Akiflow manages tasks, routines, and daily reminders, plus it gives me an evening summary for the next day. Sure, I could manually check all my Google calendars, but why do that when I can have a robot do it for me?

The ClickUp Experiment

One more free resource I’ve dabbled with is ClickUp. According to the internet, ClickUp is the Swiss Army knife for startups—replacing Slack, Google Docs, and probably your morning coffee. I’ve only used it for a specific project, but I’m keeping an eye on it. (You never know when you’ll need another productivity app to ignore.)

The Ongoing Saga

I’ll keep testing new tools and share my journey as I try to offload tasks from my PA-head to my very own Akiflow-AI. Speaking of which, I think it’s time to give my Akiflow assistant a name. I think I’ll go with… Aki McFlowface. Because if it’s good enough for Boaty McBoatface, it’s good enough for my AI.