As an industry leader, Betterment is on a mission to simplify investing and help people take charge of their financial futures. We asked Kevin Becker-Torres, Betterment’s Director of IT, to tell us how his team uses Clockwise to carry out their day-to-day work in support of that mission.
Rebalancing meeting-heavy schedules
Betterment manages more than $33 billion in assets for more than 700,000 customers — and the numbers keep getting higher as the company grows and continues to innovate. As one would expect, such a huge and innovative operation involves many meetings.
The promise of a smarter schedule is what first drew Kevin to Clockwise in 2019. Clockwise works by rearranging your meetings to find long stretches of uninterrupted time, making it perfect for folks who value deep work.
“I didn’t have that many reports, but I had a ton of meetings, and getting Focus Time was the hard part,” Kevin shares. “So having Clockwise move my one-on-ones with folks I met on a weekly or biweekly basis, and getting more Focus Time has been great.”
Security was also an important factor in Kevin’s decision to endorse Clockwise, especially as Director of IT at a global financial services organization. “My concern was: What is this going to be reading and writing on our domain? When I saw it doesn’t write anything on pre-made events, it was reassuring. Clockwise only moves whatever I tell it to move and puts all the control in my hands.”
Now, Clockwise is Kevin’s go-to software recommendation for colleagues at Betterment, whether he’s suggesting Focus Time or newly-released Scheduling Links. “I was like, you should sign up for this thing to help make your life easier. You should do this. When people started asking for Calendly we were like, you should use Clockwise instead.”
Leveraging automation for less stress
The ability to schedule Focus Time outside of meetings has been a big hit. “The big thing is having time to actually focus on your work. I can actually do work now, which is awesome. Some days I feel like I'm not productive. Then Clockwise shifts my one-on-ones and maybe throws them all into a Friday. Now I have Thursday completely open just to work. It feels great knowing I can catch up and enjoy my weekend. It's a huge achievement to be able to find time for you during the week so you can actually work.”
Kevin also likes that Clockwise improves focus during meetings, too. We do that through our Slack integration, which automatically turns on Do Not Disturb based on your calendar.
Kevin shares a scenario many of us are likely familiar with: “I hated being in a meeting and forgetting to hit snooze on Slack. You don’t have to worry about that. It works flawlessly.”
Another thing that he doesn’t have to worry about anymore? Scheduling travel time. “I work hybrid, so if I’m home and I make a doctor’s appointment, Clockwise sees that I’m physically going somewhere and puts those blocks before and after for travel.”
He continues, “In the past, I’d be like, ‘Oh, great. There’s a meeting right after a doctor’s appointment.’ And I’d tell everyone we have to shift because I have to get to the office. Now I don’t have to worry about that. I have that nice little half-hour in between to get to where I have to go.”
Coordinating time as a team for better collaboration
Creating harmony out of many team members’ schedules is no easy task. Clockwise streamlines collaboration for Betterment by creating a shared team calendar with everyone’s working hours, OOO, bandwidth, and more easily accessible.
“When I first started using Clockwise, I thought it was for my use only. Then I saw that there’s a built-in feature for teams,” Kevin mentions. “I made an IT team, started to play with it, and saw how it coordinates all our time together, outside of our one-to-ones. It’s cool because Google Calendar didn't really show you the holistic view. I could just go to Clockwise and see all of our schedules really quickly.”
Improving productivity and quality of downtime
We created Clockwise with the belief that time management is not only the key to productivity, but also well-being. Kevin shares how that mental and emotional component has played out in his own experience of using Clockwise:
“Some days, I have nothing but meetings for the whole day, and it sucks because I feel I’m not productive. But then Clockwise will shift around my one-on-ones, maybe throw them all into Friday, and now I have Thursday completely open for me to work. It feels great knowing I can catch up, bang it all out, and then enjoy my weekend.”
Sign up for free and see for yourself how Clockwise can transform your work schedule to be more sustainable and productive.
