skills: To keep your calendar in check, it is essential to set boundaries.
Your calendar habits can either make or break your success and productivity. Without proper calendar management, you won’t be able to be as productive and focused as you need to be.
Here are eight ways you can control your calendar like an entrepreneur.
Calendar Management Skills
- Consolidate
We all have different preferences when it comes to our calendars. Some still use a paper calendar. Some people make use of large wall calendars. Others can only live with an online calendar app.
As long as you are productive and organized, there is no wrong or right calendar. You will almost always find the one that suits you best.
There may be too many options with some calendars. Perhaps you have one appointment in your calendar and another that has been added to your online schedule. You may need clarification and double-book.
Consolidating your calendar into one calendar will allow you to manage it like a pro. You can keep everything in one place. This applies to your entire productivity toolkit. The more, the better.
One calendar (Google Calendar), one task manager (Wunderlist), one Moleskine note, and one Moleskine planner are the only ones I use. To limit my productivity, I started to experiment with bullet journaling. This allows me to keep my to-do lists, calendar, and notes the same.
2. Make a routine.
Every night before I go to sleep, I know what the next day will look like. At the very least, I know what the next week, month, or year will look like. Why? To create and keep a daily routine, I use my online calendar.
My calendar has specific blocks for certain activities. I am figuring out how to use my time. I know this already in advance. It keeps me organized and prevents me from doing the same tasks or meeting twice. This ensures that I am productive and doesn’t overlap with other schemes or meetings. These time management books can help you.
3. Grupify similar activities into blocks.
How often have your projects stalled because you needed to attend a meeting or reply to an email? That hinders your productivity. It takes approximately 25 minutes to resume a task after being interrupted. You can stay on track by focusing on one task at a time.
Batching is the process of grouping and scheduling similar activities. You can enter a flow state by grouping similar activities together, which reduces stress and saves you time. It keeps you energetic and focused since you aren’t switching between tasks. You could set aside time to answer emails and another time to do unassisted work.
You can keep the flow going by scheduling similar meetings for the same day. You may also remember the information.
Blocks of time for free, rest, and lunch are all critical. This allows you to take a break, reset, and refocus to get through the rest of your day.
4. Maximize time for different meetings
When scheduling a meeting, the default setting is to set aside an hour on your online calendar. You can reserve that little time for every session.
You can schedule a 10-minute call to set up an introduction meeting. This will allow you to get straight to the point. You can also tell if the relationship isn’t working out for you by limiting your time.
If you know the person well, set aside 45 minutes and 15 minutes for travel to meet them at a local coffee shop. Keep the conversation short if you are sharing advice. Weekly staff meetings should be between 20 and 30 minutes in length. These are the times that work for me.
Meetings do not require the same time. You need to determine the best time block for an appointment before you set it in stone. This will ensure that you only schedule the time necessary. Some other time management hacks will help you get through your meetings.
5. Eliminate back-to-back appointments
Stop scheduling back-to-back meetings. This is a surefire way of ensuring you are late for the second meeting. This is because sometimes meetings take longer than anticipated, so you must be prepared or get stuck in traffic.
I aim to leave at least 15 minutes between meetings and 30 if I travel to another location. This allows me to take a break, focus, and ensure I don’t miss a session.
- Clear out the clutter.
Do you want to have complete control over your calendar? Keep it from becoming so cluttered and full to the brim.
This means your calendar is full:
- Standing meetings, like “check-ins.”
- Discussions that do not have an agenda or purpose.
- You can no longer accommodate recurring events or commitments.
- You can fill your calendar with small tasks.
- It’s second nature to schedule activities such as walking your dog in the morning.
- Learn to delegate.
- Clear out the clutter in your calendar for a few minutes. This will make it easier to manage and keep it simple.
7. say “no.”
You can expect a jam-packed calendar if you constantly say yes to every invitation and request. This means that your weekends are filled with helping others finish their work instead of having time to work. Instead of spending your weekends hiking or taking cooking classes, you’re going to party after the celebration.
However, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t say yes. This means setting boundaries to ensure your calendar is under your control.
8. Do a weekly review.
This principle is taken from David Allen’s book, “Getting Things Done.” It can be described as follows:
“From a practical perspective, here’s the Weekly Review’s three-part drill: Get clear, stay current, and be creative. Clearing your head will allow you to process all the collected material. Staying current will allow you to review and update your orienting lists or “maps.” As you become more apparent and more current, the creative part will happen to some extent automatically.
- Before you fill up your calendar with appointments, do your Weekly Review.
- Take a look at the past. Take a look at the calendar for last week. You may have forgotten to send a follow-up email.
- Plan for the Future. This will remind you of upcoming meetings or appointments so you are prepared.
- A Good Mindset Starts Your Week. You’ll be more proactive and ready for the week by reviewing your calendar on Sunday night or Monday morning.