So, now you can get your bookkeeping together and get your digits and customer information organized!

So, I bet you’re wondering how you win?  That’s easy.  Here’s how:

1.  Leave us a comment below by the deadline, June 1, 2009 at 12:00pm (noon) PST / 3:00pm EST.  (Be sure to include your email address so we can contact you if you win!)

2. Subscribe to this blog (if you haven’t already).

That’s it!

Bonus points:

Re-tweet:  Are you following me on Twitter?  Be sure to retweet this contest after you enter!

Winners will be announced Tuesday, June 2, 2009!

Please be sure to visit our giveaway sponsor:

They are running a Small Business Grant Contest – go and vote for your favorite HERE.  There are some great small businesses up for some great prizes!  Also, check out the Intuit Twitter peeps: @SharnQuickBooks, @kirasw and @rkeuretig

Good luck everyone!

Update, June 2, 2009:

Thanks to all who entered, and congratulations to the winner: Teresa Hall!

I missed an appointment this morning. *sigh*

I immediately called to apologize and asked to reschedule, and yet I still feel awful! No matter what my excuse (for the record, yesterday my husband got home after two weeks, I worked 3 hours in the yard and I had ten million things to do today….) I still missed the appointment. *insert sinister gloomy music here*

A few years ago I was always late to appointments. An exasperated friend of mine said to me, “Do you think your time is any less valuable than mine?” Ouch. It hurt for him to say that, but he was soooo right and I knew I needed to shape up. I’m not perfect (who is, really) and sometimes I am still late. But, I learned a few tricks along the way to stack the odds in my favor and keep on schedule. Here’s a few tips and tricks I use:

1. Reconfirm. This is something I have started doing, and it makes all the difference! It goes with that idea that if you want someone to remember something, you have to remember to remind them to remember. Get it?

2. Leave a little breathing room. Schedule time around appointments to account for traffic and other unexpected events (like a talkative client or co-worker). A day in life or work doesn’t have to be back-to-back. A little white space will go a long way. It leaves room for inspiration, spontaneity, productivity and sanity. Leave a little room, whether it’s 15 minutes or more so you aren’t a hurried mess.

3. Be there a little early. In the movie Drumline, there is a particularly great quote about time management: “If you’re five minutes early, you’re on time. If you’re on time, you’re late.” I don’t know about you, but I have an easier time being early than exactly on time. For example, many times I’m super early to a meeting I have across town every other month. I leave early enough so I have an hour to spare before the meeting (including traffic). Sometimes I have a great amount of time to work with, so I always have my laptop and a book. Other times I just go take a walk.

It’s not always possible to be perfectly on time and not miss a single appointment. Life happens, and sometimes we mess up. Little changes and conscious decisions will reduce the likelihood of being late or not showing up altogether. Being at your best is a series of decisions about setting up and structuring your days. Take it one step at a time and you’ll be on your way to better managing time and showing up. (And if and when you do mess up, apologize and do better next time.)

It’s all a process, so embrace it!

(photo by StuSeeger on Flickr)

Ok, I use Outlook, and I am so excited by what I today. Peggy Duncan posted about linking Google and Outlook here. Google calendar and Outlook now sync! It’s possible I’m dense or just plain not paying attention, but I was literally jumping up and down when I found this little gem. I was eager to try it out, so about a week ago I set it up. If you’d like to try it out, here’s how you can do that.

I had used Plaxo to sync the two in the past, but this feature is new. I now have an icon in my desktop tray that looks like this:

During the sync, I did have a little trouble with some duplicate entries, because I didn’t delete the calendar before I started (oops). So, my husband was giggling when I was going thru and deleting all those on wonderful dupes (sigh). Anyway, other than that it was pretty seamless.

So why is this helpful?

I use Outlook, and there are times when I’m not at home (travelling), don’t have my laptop (gasp) and even worse I don’t have email access on my Blackberry (I want to be reachable, but not THAT reachable if you catch my drift). So, this provides me access to my calendar anywhere in the world that I can find an internet connection. The other cool thing is the ability to share my calendar (full details or just shaded blocks of time) with whomever I choose. Being that I have a radio show in the works, this was handy for my co-host, Krista, and I. And, I can see the two calendars overlapping at the click of a button. Cool, eh?

Another backup.

Most of us have been there, total crash, lose everything. *Cringe* NOT fun. In addition to regular backups to an external hard drive, online backup service (I like Carbonite) or PDA, this additional backup helps me with another place that my calendar is saved. That’s some serious piece of mind, and as Sparkpluggers, losing a business calendar to a crash can be a business, income and credibility killer. Yikes!

So, should you sync your Outlook and Google Calendar? That’s a question only you can answer. For me, I’m lovin’ it.