How to Manage Your Calendar with Confidence
Calendar management can be scary. The best advice we can offer is to hire an executive assistant to manage it for you. Let your EA be the master planner and keep you on track so you can focus on the bigger picture. If you aren’t ready to take the plunge with an assistant, then read on for tips and tricks to help you manage your calendar.
Create a routine
We know, everyone says to create a morning routine and your life will be simpler. From personal experience, we can tell you that a morning routine won’t solve all your problems but it can help you start each day the right way. Once you have developed your routine, add it to your calendar just like any other scheduled meeting or event. Once something is added to our calendar, we have to do it. It’s like checking the box on your list; it’s going to get accomplished.
Group meetings and calls together
The idea of grouping calls and meetings is something that isn’t for everyone. Back-to-back-to-back calls and meetings can wear you out, but it also allows you to have larger chunks of uninterrupted time to really tackle the bigger projects.
Block time for email
Don’t forget to block time for managing your email - unless of course, you’d like to hire an assistant to take care of your email and your calendar! If you don’t schedule a time or times daily to deal with your inbox, it can get out of control and be overwhelming. Stay on top of it by carving time out each morning and afternoon to make sure you’ve responded to emails requiring your attention and cleaned out all the junk.
Don't double-book
Make sure you don’t over-schedule yourself so you have to be in two places or on two phone calls at the same time. Use a tool such as Calendly with built-in time buffers to help prevent this. Make sure it syncs to all the calendars you use, then send the link when someone needs to schedule a call or meeting. Using an automatic scheduler reduces the chance that you will be double-booked.
Plan time for breaks, lunch, exercise, and family
It might sound ridiculous to plan out these activities, but if you don’t, time can get away from you. Soon you have nothing left for your family, your well-being, or even your lunch. Unfortunately, we’ve eaten many lunches sitting at our desk, trying to chew while on mute, and then rushing off to the next call or project. Don’t be like that. Take breaks, exercise or take a short walk, and spend time with family and friends.
If you’ve read this far you should be ready to create some new habits. If you are still overwhelmed, then it’s time for you to chat with We Recruit Well, and let us find a team member who can relieve you of this burden.