Current gig: Mad Scientist

Working from: Niagara, Ontario, Canada

Working on: laptop, Android phone

Kyle Upton

1. Tell us about yourself and the kind of work you do.

I own two Mad Science franchises (in Niagara and London, Ontario), where we get elementary school aged children excited about science through exciting hands-on activities and dynamic demonstrations (lasers, slime, bubbling potions etc). For my hobby job I run Ghost Tours at Fort George, so my exciting life involves a white lab coat during the day and a black cape at night. Additionally, I assist my father with his business of selling War of 1812 swords.

2. What does a typical work day look like?

Every day is different!

With 20-30 Mad Science staff out there doing programming there is always equipment to purchase, scripts to design, and programs to deliver, and then there are the sales calls and marketing projects too! Then 2-3 nights a week it's off to Fort George to tell ghost stories. An extra complication is that Mad Science operates from my home, so there also needs to be some life-work balancing to be done to make sure that parenting responsibilities for the 9 and 7 year old are covered off. This is even more complicated during the summer because the kids are home and want to do things! And, of course, my Dad always calls at an inopportune time to get help with his website, social media, or whatever.

3. How big is your team of coworkers/collaborators?

Mad Science has 20-30 staff over 2 locations, Ghost Tours has 6 staff, and then there is my Dad. Of that gang 4 of them tie in through Sandglaz.

4. Why did you choose Sandglaz?

Sandglaz is simple and has the collaboration feature so that I can share tasks with staff. Importantly, "Sandglaz also keeps completed tasks visible and searchable so that there are no "I thought I did that, but maybe I didn't" moments.

5. How does it fit into your workflow?

Sandglaz is my to do list, and the place to put ideas that may one day become to dos. It allows me to see what coworkers are working on and allows them to assign me tasks, and see what I have completed.

6. How do you organize your tasks in Sandglaz?

Okay, I admit I need to clean things up a bit! Since my life has multiple facets, so does my Sandglaz, with a project for each (Ghost Tour, Dad Stuff, Niagara, London) and then shared projects for staff. Generally these are daily (love the bump uncompleted forward to the next day feature!).

Then there is my Thoughts project which is a place to vomit forth ideas, record links and generally put ideas until I can get around to them... Also useful to put reminders to usernames and passwords for websites (don't forget Sandglaz is https).

Of course, I love My Tasks! This means I have everything that I need me to do and everyone else needs me to do all in one place.

7. In one sentence, how did Sandglaz change the way you work?

I don't have to worry about forgetting things, and prioritization is drag and drop easy!