Tag: calendar management

Seven Simple Calendar Management Tips to Practice

Seven Simple Calendar Management Tips to Practice

Working remotely does not mean everything is convenient and easy. You will still encounter instances of rushing to meet deadlines, struggling to compromise with the client’s requirements, and keeping up with the operational standards of your company without trading off work quality.

One of the crucial factors in making sure you are spending your day at work productively and efficiently is managing your schedule properly. It is not all about thinking of what to do and not to do daily. There are ways that could keep your time managed more effectually, such as through calendar management. 

Nonetheless, it is not all about setting appointments. There are different practices that you could do to ensure your calendar is used advantageously, such as the following:

Set appointments with realistic length of time. This is most effective when it comes to setting up meetings. Most would practice scheduling meetings at a certain length of time, such as half an hour. This is regardless of what type of meeting it is. This should not be the case since a phone meeting may only take 15 minutes and an in-person meeting may take longer. 

By doing so, you will be more precise in dividing your time for the day. You may even save more time for other more important appointments.

Try time boxing. If you are finding it difficult to manage your time given you have tons of activities daily, time boxing may work for you. This practice would keep you focused on one activity at a certain time. For instance, you will set an hour for writing an excerpt for your marketing material, then you have to work on the said task within that time frame. After one hour, you will stop and proceed to the next activity.

Time boxing will help you avoid missing deadlines and ensure to concentrate on all tasks effectively.

Do not forget to create gaps in between activities. Never practice setting appointments one after another. For example, you will have a meeting from 8:30 A.M. to 10:00 A.M., then you will have another at 10:00 A.M. exactly. This would result in procrastination and may cause pressure on your end.

It is most effective to set up short breaks in between. These gaps could even help you attend to unanticipated matters, such as sudden calls or urgent messages.

Never forget to set reminders. Your calendar may be overlooked if you do not set notifications for the activities you have scheduled. You need reminders to remember what you have to do at a certain day and time. To make things more efficient, do not simply rely on the calendar app notifications, but set up e-mail reminders, as well. Doubling the notices will keep you in check.

Figure out your most productive hours. If you want to secure priority tasks, make sure they are scheduled to be done in your most productive hours. This will assure that while carrying out these critical activities, your brain’s cognitive abilities are at its peak.

You would be able to determine your most productive hours by checking when you are most proactive and slacking less. Some find themselves more efficient an hour or two after their shift starts, while others find themselves more competent after lunch time. 

Color code your appointments. Make sure to set specific colors for different types of events, such as blue for attending meetings, yellow for accounts handling, and green for answering e-mails. This practice will give you quick insight on how your day would be at a glance.

Plan for personal breaks. Do not simply give attention to work-related appointments. You are also human and require recharge from time to time. Hence, it is imperative that your calendar also includes breaks, exercise times, and even activities with your family and friends.

If you find time to unwind, you will also give yourself time to sustain your well-being. Remember, you would not be able to attend to all your appointments unless you are healthy yourself.

The aforementioned tips can be easily applied as soon as now, if you want to improve how you manage your daily work. Start saving time, avoiding procrastination, reducing stress, and eliminating distractions throughout your day.

Top Reasons Why Calendar Management Is Important

Top Reasons Why Calendar Management Is Important

Leave a comment

Every executive or business person encounters a situation wherein he or she misses an appointment or probably ending up forgetting an important tête-à-tête with another person. This may be normal for seldom times, particularly if one is filled with appointments daily. However, if this becomes frequent, there should at least be a solution to mitigate this issue. Be reminded that a missed meeting may be a lost profit, potential client, or opportunity for growth.

Instead of sitting back and letting a predicament ruin your career or business, you should accept that calendar management must be enforced in your everyday life. There are various reasons why this task is totally crucial for you to maintain a good reputation amongst your colleagues, partners, or clients. To give you a few, here are the following:

Productivity Aid. If you want to be more productive, calendar management is a must. It specifically helps you develop a routine daily, which keeps you from prioritizing unimportant things. Furthermore, calendar management will allow you to allocate your time effectively, protecting you from delayed accomplishments of critical jobs.

Clutter Prevention. By effective management of your calendar, you will be able to get rid of the unnecessary tasks or appointments in your calendar. This is through scheduling your daily or weekly routine in advance.

Be reminded that not all meetings on your calendar now are actually in need of a large chunk of your time. Furthermore, there are calls that are not a priority in comparison to others.

Goals Achievement. A certain goal will not be met unless it is planned to be attained. For instance, you want to create a fetching proposal to your prospective client by the end of the month. As an efficient approach, you should use your calendar to identify and schedule the activities needed to be done to meet your deadline.

Take note that goals pass through every firm’s structure. Even in terms of reaching a certain amount of revenue, there are, for certain, tasks involved in this, which require proper allocation of time.

Well-Deserved Break Allocation. If you do not manage your time accordingly, you will end up working almost the entire week, leaving you less effective over time. Through calendar management, you would discover that you have means to at least allocate a certain number of days or hours for breaks. It does not hurt to dedicate a block of time to simply breathe or de-stress. As long as your appointments are well laid out on your calendar, you do not have to worry a lot.

Collaboration Support. You will enforce a more effectual collaboration in your workplace and extending to your partners or clients through calendar management, particularly in setting up meetings. You can resolve schedule conflicts whenever you have to meet up with them. Also, you will encounter ease whenever you propose meetings, particularly now that declining or accepting invites is much easier. In addition, calendar management allows you to set a suitable duration for every meeting you will have.

Indeed, you will think to yourself that calendar management should be a part your professional life going forward, but you may not find time for it. There is no issue relative to this, especially if you will have a virtual assistant to handle your calendar. Most of the time, businessmen allow their VAs to carry out the difficult part of scheduling their appointments and coordinating with key people.

Get control of your time while you can instead of continuing to suffer from extraneous pressures at work.