In today’s fast-paced world, the efficient management of time and commitments is paramount. Using applications like Google Calendar to systematically book and track appointments streamlines the process, ensuring that both the user and those seeking appointments can coordinate with clarity and confidence.

Benefits to the User (person, professional, service provider, business owner):

1. Time Management: Prioritize and allocate time effectively, avoiding double bookings or over-commitments.
2. Notifications & Reminders: Receive timely alerts for upcoming appointments, reducing the risk of forgetting or overlooking commitments.
3. Accessibility: Access the calendar from any device, anywhere, ensuring constant awareness of schedule.
4. Efficiency: Easily reschedule or adjust appointment timings with drag-and-drop features.
5. Integration: Integrate with other apps or services for a holistic management system, such as syncing with email for automatic booking confirmations.
6. Transparency: Have a clear overview of daily, weekly, or monthly schedules at a glance.
7. Sharing & Collaboration: Share calendar availability with colleagues or teams, aiding in collaborative planning.

Benefits to the Person Seeking an Appointment (e.g., a client, patient, customer, business partner, person, professional):

1. Clarity: Clearly see available time slots, allowing for informed decision-making.
2. Convenience: Book appointments at any time without the need for back-and-forth communication.
3. Timely Reminders: Receive notifications and reminders, ensuring they don’t miss their slot.
4. Flexibility: Reschedule or cancel appointments easily if conflicts arise.
5. Synchronization: Integrate their booked slots with personal calendars to have all commitments in one place.
6. Transparency: Receive automatic confirmations and updates about the appointment, ensuring transparency in the booking process.
7. Efficient Communication: Reach out directly through integrated messaging features if they have queries or concerns about the appointment.

There are many scheduling apps in the market. Here are ratings from Forbes.

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/software/best-scheduling-apps/

If I found the Forbes list first, I may have been totally confused to the point of paralysis by analysis.

Fortunately, 2 of my BNI Abundance business partners used Calendly (Cris) and OnceHub (Edwin), and I was convinced that as an operations and systems expert, I had to have one!

Since I use Google Calendar and have a Google Workspace account (possibly by virtue of my buying additional Google drive storage), I decided to start my first scheduling page in Google Calendar.

After watching a how to video (15 minutes), I set up and tested the appointments page in 30 minutes. It looked like this:

I then messaged 12 of my business network partners who I wanted to meet. And within 2 hours, 6 of the 12 already booked an appointment. What used to take a long exchange of messages to find a common time was replaced by an efficient, duplicatable, professional way. Wow!

Here is the video I used to learn how to set-up my Google Calendar Booking Page.:

I will also try the free account version of Once Hub. Will post here once the hub is set-up.