

How to get a Personal Assistant for free - ryancarson
http://ryanleecarson.tumblr.com/post/23675326586/how-to-get-a-personal-assistant-for-free

======
imurray
I use <http://doodle.com/> for appointments (as well as it's original purpose
of polling a group for the best time for an event). For appointment slots, set
the options: "Participant can only choose one option" and "Limit the number of
participants per option" to one. No one ever needs to log in to anything
unless they want to (for setup or responses). It also has fancy options for
linking with calendars, but I've never used those.

------
endlessvoid94
I've switched to <http://tungle.me> . It's a lot better, and it's free.

The appointment slots feature was just not solid enough - lots of weird bugs,
the time zones sometimes got screwed up, and lots of double-booking.

~~~
cmer
They've been acquired by RIM so who knows if the service will stay alive or
not...

------
wattjustin
A great idea with a link bait of a headline. Either way, thanks for the tip!

~~~
ryancarson
lol. It's true though - I was about to hire a PA until I figured this out.

------
JoeH
This was extremely timely. I just got off a call where I was struggling how
our team could communicate appointment availability with a third party. This
is a great solution and you don't have to share personal/sensitive calendar
information with others.

------
screwt
I'm surprised it takes more than 1 email each to pick a time.

Offer: Let's have a call. I'll suggest 2pm Tue. If that doesn't work, please
let me know any time between 1pm-6pm Tue or 9am-11am Wed.

Response: 9am Wed.

I do think the gmail calendar approach is neater; the only downside being it
requires the other party to use google calendar already.

~~~
imurray
It regularly takes more than one email when I try that strategy. People don't
always reply quickly. I either can't keep all the times that I offered open,
or end up offering people very restrictive time ranges that they can't do.

------
alokv28
Of course I learn about this great tip a week after I converted all my
calendars over to iCloud. Does anyone know of a comparable feature in iCloud
calendars?

~~~
ryancarson
I'm afraid not, sorry. I've always steered clear of Apple's infrastructure
offerings as they don't play well with Google (which is bad as our entire IT
infrastructure is built on Google Apps)

------
adrianhoward
These are trez useful aren't then. I've been using them to organise client
office hours for a while.

------
jmedwards
Hidden gem

~~~
ryancarson
I know - it's amazing huh? I can't believe how useful this has been for me.

