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Halfway there (Google apps and taxes)
In the U.S., July 4 is the celebration of our nation’s birthday. We often spend the weekend with parties or picnics or family reunions or weddings. The weekend often ends with tired, but happy, people. When you look at a calendar though, July 1 is sort of like “hump day” for the year. The year is now half over (or half begun) and it’s a time to take stock, assess what is or is not working, and plan for the rest of the year.
This might also be a good time to realize that it’s only 6 months until the end of the year and I’m willing to bet that there are a few people that haven’t even begun to think about taxes yet. (WHAT??? You want me to think about taxes in JULY.)
YES, I actually want you to think about taxes in July. Actually, it’s something you should be thinking about every week, or at least every month, and you should be doing some record keeping so that when you do your taxes (or go to see your tax preparer) in 2015, you are somewhat prepared. I realize that sometimes it’s easy to procrastinate, and I want to encourage you to not fall too far behind.
I’m a big fan of various Google Apps (HELLO — FREE!!), so I’m going to point out a few ways that Google Apps can be used in keeping track of your expenses.
Google Calendar https://www.google.com/calendar
Besides allowing you to keep track of your schedule, share your schedule, and syncing with a number of other applications, Google Calendar keeps track of where you’ve been. If you use Google Calendar thoroughly and faithfully, at the end of a week (or month, or 6 months) you can go back through your calendar and check what you’ve done. You can look at each event and see if there’s anything you’ve done that needs to be documented.
Google Maps https://maps.google.com
After you’ve checked your Google Calendar, you’ll realize that you’ve had some travels (meetings or lunches you’ve attended) that you forgot to write down mileage for. This is where Google Maps comes in handy. Just enter your starting location and your destination and you know your mileage (double it for a round trip).
Google Docs https://docs.google.com
Specifically Google spreadsheets. You can use a Google spreadsheet to enter your costs (mileage, advertising, office expenses, deductible meals and entertainment, etc. etc. etc).
Anytime you’re using any type of spreadsheet (Excel, Google Drive, Numbers), I highly recommend beginning with the end in mind. If you’re looking to do your own bookkeeping so that you can either do your taxes or send them to a tax professional, figure out what you’ll need at the end of the year and input the proper categories. (For myself, and many solopreneurs, look at Schedule C).
Next week we’ll look at a few other Google Apps that can make your life easier.
Related articles
- Five Cloud Apps To Manage Your Business Remotely (woman.com.au)
- 5 Reasons Why You Should be Using Google Apps for Business (mysocialagency.com)
*Disclaimer, I’m not a tax professional.
Taming the e-Tiger
In honor of Administrative Professional’s Week, I’m doing a 5-day series with simple tips. Today we discuss email.
There are quite a few books and systems in place for handling the paper tiger in your home or office*, (flylady.net is an excellent resource), but sometimes the “paper” is an overflowing e-mail box. I’ve discovered (through trial and error and error and error) that it’s easier to keep a handle on email than to GET a handle on email.
- Schedule. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, schedule when you read your mail. If you are reading at a time that you are able to give 100% of your attention to your mail, you can go through your mail with fewer distractions.
- Prioritize. Determine what needs to be taken care of immediately and what can wait until later. If you have something that you’re not ready to sort, you can having a “holding” folder outside of your inbox (for instance, a “todo” folder).
- Sort**:
Presort. You can “presort” your mail before you read it. This can be done using filters or making use of the priority inbox on the Google Gmail tabs (see “Related Articles” for my article about using Gmail tabs to sort mail.)
Post sort. Many people use files to tame their “paper” tigers. You can also use files to tame your e-tigers. For example, I have files for each of my clients, and all of their mail goes into their file. If I need to find something, all I need to do is to go into their file. I also have a file for any online purchases I make (I can put order confirmations and shipping notifications in this file). - Trash. If you no longer have a need for an email, dispose of it. It will give you one less message to pass over if you’re looking somewhere else. Sometimes I’ll go through one of my Gmail tabs and delete items when I’m waiting in a line or at a doctor’s office.
- Send it somewhere else. I know some people that tame their email by make sure that anything that can be ignored goes to one address. This is a good place for sign in forms, sweepstakes, or drawings. This is often used for mail that does not need to be checked on a regular basis but can be checked every week (or every month).
Related Articles:
Q&A The Gmail Changes. Mary Wu (marywuva.com)
*My oldest child is a high school junior who has taken the SAT. We don’t have a paper tiger, we have an entire herd of paper elephants in the form of marketing materials from various colleges. I wonder if insurance companies should consider increasing fire insurance rates for anyone with a 17 year old.
**It’s just like laundry. You wouldn’t put all your whites clothes with your red clothes with your dry cleaning. And when you’re done, you fold the towels together, match the socks and sort them by family member, and hang the blouses.
What’s Your (On-site) Backup Plan?
Last week we talked about online backups
. I’d like to continue that discussion this week with on-site backups.
Type the phrase “how to backup your computer” in Google and you will receive “about 235,000,000” results. I’m going to assume that you don’t want to go and read them all. I listed a few of the more interesting ones in the “Related Articles” section.
Backups are like exercise. There are many articles about how to exercise and when to exercise and why to exercise, but the best exercise for you is the one that you’ll do. It’s the same with backups. We all should be doing them, we all need to be doing them, but unless you find something that you’re going to keep up with, it’s rather useless.
On my current computer I use the Carbonite Mirror Image to backup to a hard drive. This is kept safely off-site (bank safe deposit box). On my former computer (Windows XP), I used a program called Rapid Backup. When I was looking for a backup program for my Windows XP machine, I did my usual method for finding software. I went to Tucows Downloads, typed the appropriate search term in the box, and found a program that was shareware with a high popularity and a high “cow” rating. I love free software, but I also like to know if it’s tested virus and spyware free (as it is on Tucows — but be wary of the ads).
In addition to that, just to make sure I always have (almost) instant access to customer files, I have my “Documents” directory and my “Downloads” directory copied to a thumb drive, which is also held in my bank safe deposit box. (Luckily my bank is 1/4 mile away, and an easy walk or drive).
One thing every person needs to assess is what their most important files are, and make sure that those files are accessible in an emergency.
Related Articles
- The Beginner’s Guide to PC Backup (PC Magazine)
(for those that know that they SHOULD be doing backups, but need a basic walk through) - How to Backup Your PC and Laptop (PC Advisor)
(very detailed backup guide) - How to Backup Your Files (dummies.com)
(a very simple video) - For Seniors, How to Backup Computer Files (dummies.com)
(note, I’m very amused that “dummies” needed to have a separate article for seniors)
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
(Oh, and if you think all that I do seems to be too much, I’m sure some of my IT friends would be telling me some steps that even I am missing).
What’s Your (online) Backup Plan?
There’s a quote you may have seen on refrigerator magnets and coffee mugs: “Life is all about how you handle Plan B*.”
A few months ago the next town over had some major flooding. This brought to mind businesses (and individuals) that might not have a backup plan. If you lose your home and your computer and your external disk drive how can you retrieve all of the information you had?
There’s an interesting article from Popular Mechanics about a test done to data where they took a hard drive and stuck it in salt water for a few days. They were able to send the data to a retrieval service to the tune of $1200 for a normal consumer. When I look at my hourly rate and compare that to my overhead costs (and I don’t pay rent), I realize that $1200 isn’t really an item I want to make room for in my budget. So TODAY I want you to figure out your backup plan.
This week, we’re going to discuss online backup services, and next week we’ll talk about backing up at home. Something I’m hesitant to admit is that I was …… less than stellar in my backups in my personal life. *ALL* my photos were on my computer AND online in Picasa but everything else (documents, software, etc.) had haphazard backups at best. I’m not proud to admit it – but I realize it’s normal.
There is an ABUNDANCE of information on the Internet about Online Backup and Cloud Storage. Which one is best for you? What’s the difference between Online Backup and Cloud storage? I’ve put a few of the articles that I’ve found most useful at the end of this post. (Let’s appreciate for a moment the number of useless articles and one blatantly plagiarized article I had to muddle through to bring you 4 quality articles.)
But instead of rehashing those articles I’ll tell you what I use (in the online/cloud world) and why.
- Google Drive. I’m unabashedly a Google Gal. As I mentioned earlier my photos have been backed up online (for YEARS) in Picasa folders. Google Drive doesn’t only keep files online; you can also share files (with colleagues or clients or friends). For instance, a friend and I are planning a program coming up at our church. Within 5 minutes of planning that I started up a spreadsheet on Google drive and share it with her. It’s a convenient place to put notes and keep things scheduled. And it’s always available as long as you have an Internet connection.
- Dropbox. Another online service where you can share files with friends, colleagues, or clients. I’m assisting some clients with an event, and share files on Dropbox is very convenient. Things can be written by one person, proofread by a second person, and edited by a third person.
- Carbonite. I could tell you that I went to Carbonite because it ranks highly in most reviews (which it does). I could tell you I chose Carbonite due to the UNLIMITED storage (hard to resist). But what drove me to look at Carbonite was because I kept hearing about it (which either means that people are talking about it, or it means I spend too much time listening to podcasts like Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me or The Nerdist). (OKAY — once I got there the unlimited thing was quite tempting.)
Next week we’ll talk about backing up your files at home, and there will be a call to action to do SOMETHING to protect your files.
*Me, I’m glad there are 26 letters in the alphabet – because sometimes in life I’ve gone well past Plan B
Related articles
- Five Best Online Backup Services (lifehacker.com.au)
- Online Backup Comparison (about.com)
(note, I’ve noticed that over the past 3 months this seems to update about once a month) - Online Backup Vs. Cloud Storage (informationweek.com)
- Cloud Storage or Online Backup – Which One? (WilliamBurdine.com)
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Q&A The Gmail changes
A friend of mine likes to use the saying, “It is what it is.” And that’s pretty much what I thought when the new Gmail tabs were rolled out. It was mildly irritating at first, but I got used to it.
Then I started reading emails and talking to people and found that, for some people, it’s a bit more complex than that. At a networking group I go to a coach was concerned about her newsletter distribution, so while I was preparing to send information to her, I decided to create a blog post.
If you liked Gmail before
If you want *YOUR* Gmail to be as it was before the change:
- Open Gmail.
- Click on the gear
in the top right and select settings. - Select the Inbox tab.
- In the Inbox type section deselect all the categories to go back to your old inbox.
(I grabbed this straight from the Google support website).
If you have subscribers
If you have a mailing list and are concerned people won’t find you because your mail now appears under the Promotions tab.
If the receivers (your subscribers) want your mail to go directly to their inbox.
Option 1
- In Gmail, click on the promotions tab.
- Hover over the mail you want moved.
- Click and drag on your mouse, and move the mail to the desired tab.
- At the top of the screen you will get a message that looks something like this:
The conversation has been moved to “Primary”. Undo
“Do this for future messages from name@email.com?” Yes - Click “Yes” in the popup message box to have all future messages appear in the desired tab.
Option 2
- In Gmail, click on the promotions tab.
- Right click on an email that you’d like to move.
- Hover over “move to tab” then hover over “primary” (or other desired tab).
- At the top of the screen you will get a message:
The conversation has been moved to “Primary”. Undo
“Do this for future messages from name@email.com?” Yes - Click “Yes” at the top of screen to have all future messages appear in your primary inbox.
Of course, if you’re sending information to your email list using a service like AWeber or MailChimp, the mail will likely end up in your subscriber’s promotions area, so you might have to send out individual emails for this step. If you do send out individual emails, you’ll only need to be concerned with people that have gmail.com addresses.
Another way to contact your newsletter subscribers is to post to any social networks (Facebook, Google+, Twitter). In addition to this post, you can share a video that Michael Stelzner of Social Media Examiner made this YouTube video describing Gmail tabs.
Personally, I’ve found that I actually like the new tabs. I find it more convenient than using filters. So I have removed all my filters and let Gmail do the sorting. I’ve taken a few very items that were sorted and forced them into my “Primary” tab (client’s and colleagues newsletters and my mail from my mom’s group) but other than the things I deem important, most of the other tabs can be looked at once every day or two.
And, hey, if a promotion is over a week old, it’s probably time for it to hit the Trash. There’s something very satisfying about putting mail in trash.
When I was researching this blog post, I found this article from NYMAG that had a (short) history of what email used to look like. This article gave me an urge to dig a little deeper (I have 10 minutes before my next appointment) to find some statistics. For anyone as old as me (or a bit geekier) I bring you this tidbit. When it was closed down in 1989, ihnp4 had a capacity of 50 MG /day UUCP traffic.
So for me, I’ll take the Gmail changes as they are. Like Dylan said, “The times they are a changin’.”