Once you read the title, I bet many of you recognized yourselves. And, of course, it is human nature to find quick and practical solutions, especially to remind ourselves of the important things we need to handle throughout the day, particularly at work.
Personally, I have been involved in the creative industry, specifically marketing, for almost 15 years. I have gained extensive experience, but one of the things that has always followed me is the lack of organization.
Perhaps not because I didn't want to be organized, but because as long as you are part of the creative industry, the time and/or dedication required for organizing, reporting, etc., is considered counterproductive, especially compared to the creativity you can offer the company, if that makes sense.
Until recently, I was one of those who strongly believed that in the marketing and creative services sector, it is impossible to plan and organize tasks for a specific period in advance.
This is simply because there are so many ad-hoc requests, and it's just impossible to manage and structure these requests in a single view, no matter what that might be.
As a result, I used to email myself reminders whenever I received a task. But this had its issues too, as I receive so many emails, sometimes hundreds in a day, I lost track of my own reminder emails.
I started at my current company, Belt Software, about two months ago. In the interviews I had with several stakeholders (the last one being with Kennan Samman, our Chief Growth Officer), I realized that their vision is precisely a solution to the problem I have described above. I remember telling him during the interview that the project was ambitious, the problem was considerable. Regardless of whether they hired me, I looked forward to seeing how this startup managed to implement what he was describing.
Fate had it that I became a part of Belt Software and witnessed firsthand the tremendous work the team is doing in developing and realizing this idea.
Of course, what Belt applies goes beyond the title of this article. Essentially, Belt Software is a Central Calendar where all your daily, weekly, and monthly commitments are clearly laid out. What sets Belt apart is that we use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to monitor your communications in emails (soon also in Teams and all major communication channels). Our system becomes a kind of 'executive assistant' for any profession, as it recommends tasks based on requests from your approved domains and individuals you want our AI to listen to. Moreover, it doesn't impose placing the request in the calendar – that decision is entirely up to you, but it facilitates this process with two very important features:
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You can see how free you are on different workdays with the workload indicator, making it easier to place tasks with a drag and drop, along with all preliminary information automatically visualized for you.
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Even if you’re still unsure which day to schedule the task/request after all this, you can leave it for a specific week, and it will appear alongside your calendar, reminding you of the task without imposing or affecting other work or events you have scheduled for that day.
In all my experience, I have not seen a product so focused on ad-hoc requests that processes and adapts them so well and easily with the other tasks or projects we have in our work.
I used the past tense in the title because I don't have to send emails to myself to remember tasks anymore – Belt does it for me, simply, automatically, and conveniently. Belt has more features too, so check out our website for more details or start your free trial.
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