For 20+ years, I’ve been running a company from my home office. A company that has multiple clients, multiple projects per client, hard deadlines, client promises, file references, and hour tracking requirements. There is nothing worse than sitting down on a Monday morning to try to figure out what I actually need to finish that day or week before I can even start your work. A disorganized schedule can become a project in and of itself.
For most jobs, you leave the office and (hopefully) leave the job. The work gets put on hold and you have a natural end to your day. But for those of us who work from home, that’s not quite as easy. How do you KNOW that the day is done? Are you sure that you’ve finished everything you need to do? Are all the projects on track? Are you sure that due dates are correct and your day is over?
The typical advice for this is to plan the day first thing in the morning. You can use the Ivy Lee Method, or the Eat that Frog Method. Maybe brain dumping is your normal morning coffee routine.
I love setting up the day before starting, but what if we made it easier?
Instead of going through projects every morning, evaluating due dates and setting requirements for the day, we plan the entire project’s hours and expectations on the initial acceptance of the project. Then, at the start of every day, you already have a list of items scheduled for that day. You can adjust the order of them, check email for any immediate needs, and then get started on your day, worry-free.
BlueMesa: Person-Focused Visual Scheduling
When I first started using this strategy – planning on the calendar all the hours needed before starting the project – I was buying a large Walmart desk calendar and writing each project in manually. This was good and bad. As a visual person, I loved the calendar view. But if I ended up at a coffee shop without first taking note, I was left trying to remember what I had already written out.
Next, I moved to some services online. I tried a manual calendar in Pages on my MacBook, and it was frustrating. Every month, I was manually creating a new calendar and writing in the projects. Finally, I gave up on this system and tried using pre-made online tools. Some worked OK, some I tried modifying to fit what I actually wanted. But that focus on ME as the person needing to complete the work, rather than focus on the project status, was elusive.
I designed the app I wanted. I thought through the structure and the layout and the colors. And finally, this year, I’ve created it in BlueMesa.
BlueMesa is what I use every day for keeping track of clients, projects, due dates, to-dos within projects, files, hours, and more. It is well and truly the perfect scheduling app for visual-based business owners.
And while I was building something I wanted to use, I figured I would sell it the way I want products to be sold – with no subscription. BlueMesa requires no subscription and no account. Upgrades are at your discretion. All your data lives on your computer, and you can export into a CSV file anytime you want.
It’s 90s nostalgia in the best way.
My Favorite Features
If I’m going to make an app that helps me design my work schedule, I want it to be easy and as comprehensive as I can. So here are some of my favorite features I’ve built-in.
Ongoing vs. one-off. Most business owners have some kind of ongoing work, and most have singular projects as well. BlueMesa keeps them in separate lists, so it’s easy to see each, while still getting the big picture.
Hourly tracking. Why is everything a separate app? Let’s build in hourly tracking for each client, displayed on the Time Tracking, the Client page, and the Project Page.
Monthly hourly limits. And while we’re at it, why isn’t there an easy way to see how many hours we’ve used of the max per month? Retainer clients can lead to massive scope creep. Let’s make sure that you can see that at a glance.
Reorder daily to-dos. I decide once in the morning which things are most important and the order to do them. Simply drag and drop that order, and then I’m not constantly asking – which one do I do next?
Drag & drop to-dos to another day. Sometimes the week needs to be rebalanced. Let’s make an easy drag & drop for that too.
Pre-schedule an entire project’s hours. New project? I enter the hours I need to complete it, and then tell BlueMesa the start and end dates. It adds all the to-dos into the calendar for me. Each one can be dragged to a different day if plans change.
Easy timer start/stop. You can start timers from the project pages, the calendar, or the sidebar. Did you check off the to-do with the timer running? No worries. The timer automatically stops.
Hours calculated per month. Are you billing hourly? Do you need to review the time you spent? Need a list of what you did on a project? All of them are under Time Tracking, defaulting to the current month. No more searching through links and reports to get the information you need to bill.
Flexible fields for clients and projects. Everyone needs different information, so let’s make the fields flexible. You add what you need on your projects and clients. And if you want client information to show up on the project page? An easy click on the settings page will also show the client’s phone number/email/etc. right there on the project.
Easy emails. I need to update clients on the project; let’s build in a single click on the email information so that I can start the email directly from BlueMesa.
Checklist templates. I have the same items that need to be done on multiple projects. Let’s add a checklist template into the system so those can be easily put in.
Repeated items. Paychecks need to go out regularly. Let’s make sure we can do repeated to-dos within a project so I don’t forget.
Clients send me files and links. Each project page includes files and links within it so that no assets are forgotten.
Let’s not forget to-dos with no current end date. Seriously, let’s not forget them. These are included in the project list, though not on the calendar. You can also view all open to-dos on the projects page – with undated ones at the top.
I Built the App for Me
I built BlueMesa for me – but I think other people are looking for something similar. Project-focused apps are fine for large teams, but for those running their own companies, you just need something to keep everything on track.
I hope BlueMesa is that for you.