Choose a planner with time slots for business

The ability to plan a schedule is crucial for every business owner. You can’t build a long-living business and strong reputation if you can’t manage your time properly. A planner with time slots is a great instrument to keep you organized. But there are so many hourly planners on the market. How to pick one that you will use?

Let’s overview different types of planners, from paper ones to digital ones. It’s essential to pick the planner that meets your needs and which fits your current workflow.

Paper hourly planner with time slots.

There is a wide range of different options of paper planners on the market. If you search for an hourly planner on Amazon or Etsy, you will find fantastic variants there. You can buy a planner notebook or print out a pdf with the scheduling style you prefer. It can be a standard planner with week and month views or a modified planner with goals, expenses, priorities, and other things.

Pros of paper planners:

The act of handwriting positively affects your brain, increasing neural activity in certain sections of the brain.
You can choose the size of the planner that you are comfortable with. It can be a pocket-size planner or a large and heavy paper planner.
You don’t need an internet connection for your paper planner. It may sound fun, but there can be situations when the internet is down, or the coverage can be extremely weak.

Cons of paper planners:

It’s hard to make changes to the schedule.
You need to bring it along with you permanently.
Clients may call you out of working hours to make a booking.
You can lose it, or somebody can steal it. That is really scary if the whole client base and your business schedule disappear with this paper planner.
It can’t be shared within multiple locations at the same time.
Clients can’t book your services without your participation.
Client’s don’t know an available time before they call you.

Digital hourly planner with time slots.

The popularity of smartphones as the primary working tool is growing day by day, and we can’t imagine our daily life without them. Smartphones have become very powerful that allow us to use many professional productivity apps and tools. There are many options on the market, from simple calendar apps to complete online booking systems with payments, marketing tools, and other handy tools for service providers.

Pros of planner apps and booking systems:

You can use it on a mobile phone — no need to bring along some extra stuff with you.
Many features that paper planners can’t provide. Like reminders, recurring events, easy editing, and other features.
All data synchronizes with the cloud. You will not lose your clients’ database and schedule information if you lose the phone or somebody steals it.
Data is securely stored.
You can share your calendar with others – fully or partially.
If it’s a booking system, it can provide many features that will help automate your business and bring customer relations to the next level. Online payments, 24/7 bookings for clients, marketing tools, sales reports, and other productivity and automation tools.

Cons of planner apps and booking systems:

Usually hard to use for the newcomers. You will need some time to get used to a digital planner after a paper one.
More features = more complexity. Online booking systems may provide a lot of features, and you can get lost in all this variety.
You need a device to use it (phone, tablet or computer).
Usually, you may need an internet connection.

The simplicity of a paper planner and the power of the booking system.

As you see, all types of planners have their pros and cons, and it’s crucial to choose the right instrument for your business. We at Bookla are working hard to provide the simplicity of a paper planner but with the power of a modern online booking system. We believe that modern business requires a cutting-edge toolset that will help focus on the activities you love the most. Start using Bookla business today, or you can schedule a demo call to see our booking system in action.