Since starting OhSnap! late last year I’ve been managing three separate calendars. In doing so I’ve had double bookings, missed appointments, and miscommunications—it’s been a disaster!

Yesterday, I had a pretty big conflict come up. There were two separate client meetings with two separate clients booked at the same time. I ended up having to reschedule one call which thankfully was no big deal but I should’ve never been in that situation to begin with because I should’ve had everything cleaned up.

Should’ve been the key work there. I waited, I waited, waited because most of the inconveniences weren’t a big deal but yesterday it almost messed with my livelihood so in the words of Lloyd Christmas, “I took care of it…”

It’s time to get my calendars in order

What are the three calendars?

With multiple businesses and in trying to be a good husband and father, I have to maintain three calendars.

1. My OhSnap! cal which is my primary calendar - this is where I book meetings, time block, and manage the business.

2. My The Creative Brand cal is secondary but still critical as I use for podcast and newsletter time, my coaching business, and advising.

3. My shared calendar with my wife where we maintain personal events, kids activities, and other non-professional appointments.

They all serve different purposes and this should be easy enough but as things got busier and more meetings were automatically added (I have separate booking links for OS and TCB) things started slipping through the cracks. I needed a solution, so I built a Zap.

Let’s automate these calendars!

When I need to automate something I use Zapier. I’ve been doing that for almost a decade now.

Disclaimer: I’m a Zapier Ambassador but this email isn’t sponsored.

This is my zap (check out the template here)

Step 1 - If OhSnap! booking

Since my OS calendar is my primary, I wanted any new events added to it to trigger the Zap. The trigger is looking for any “New Event” on this calendar.

Step 2 - …create a hold on TCB cal

Once the event is identified, create an event on my TCB cal titled “HOLD: OS” with start times and end times that match the event from step 1. No reminders, descriptions, or anything, just a busy status and calendar hold gets the job done for me.

Step 3 - If before 9:30a or after 2:30p

Steps 1 and 2 cover the professional obligations but I take my personal responsibilities seriously and I’ve had slip ups there as well. My wife and I only have 1 car which means we need to be very clear if we need it. On top of that, the kids are currently in camp which means 9am dropoffs and 3pm pickups. We like to do those together but if either of us have a conflict we need to keep the other in the loop. This is where the filter comes into play.

If I have a booking before 9:30am or after 2:30pm it will also add an event to our shared calendar this way my wife is kept in the loop automatically. This is 100% so I don’t drop the ball and force her into a tough situation (which I have done on multiple occasions, sorry!).

Step 4 -…add event to shared cal with Katie

This is literally identical to step 2 except I use the shared calendar and I title the events “Dmitry meeting” so it’s clear that I’m working at those points.

Did this need an automation?

Yeah, it did. I know we keep wanting AI and automations to transform these massive processes for us—and, they should—but it’s these tiny little things that add up that end up hurting us in the long run and I can promise you managing these 3 calendars has been more tedious than most other things these days.

In addition to the 4-step Zap above, I also built a 25-step automation using HubSpot, Slack, Gmail, filters, conditionals, and lookup tables that’s pretty fun and I have a HubSpot, Asana, Fathom one that’s coming next week too. You know we build great brand systems at OhSnap! and automation is a big part of them. If you need help simplifying a workflow (or getting rid of those annoying little blockers), we’re here.