This blog gives you some tips for managing your calendar better so that you can claim some of that time back.

What is calendar management?

Calendar management is the process of actively organising your time in order to create the most productive and realistic plan. It includes work tasks, meetings, calls, trips, client work, school runs… whatever you need to do each day.

What are the benefits of proper calendar management?

Calendar management can help you with:

• Prioritising the important ‘must-do’ tasks that can get pushed aside 
• Efficiency and productivity by planning ahead so there’s less time wasted
• Organisation of teams, meetings, calls, goals… 
• Finding achievement in getting things done
• Insight into where your time goes.

Tips for managing your calendar

There are different ways to manage your calendar so you need to find what works best for you. Below are some tips that could help, so try them out and see what sticks!

Review

Review what you need to get done each day and week before you start. This way you can decide in advance what your focus will be and be prepared for what’s ahead. Start by writing down the top three tasks for the day. 

Block booking and batching

Carve out blocks of time for different tasks and where possible, batch like tasks together. 

For example, if you need to write 5 posts this week, block out a set amount of time and do all 5 together. This allows you to focus on one thing and stops you from flitting between different tasks.

This works for any type of task as well as client work. It’s also a great habit to get into for email management – block a certain amount of time in the day to deal with emails and don’t look at them at any other time.

Calendar scheduler

Use Calendly (https://calendly.com/) or another similar calendar scheduler to book appointments. You set times within the app that you are available for meetings and then just send the other person a link to book whenever suits them. 

This way you avoid wasting time going back and forth trying to fix dates and times that work for you both.

Merge calendars

This works well for personal and works calendars as well as collaborative team calendars. Putting all the information in one place will give you a much better idea of how the week should pan out.

Colour code 

Colour coding helps you see at a glance what’s in store for the day, and some people find it very useful for avoiding being overwhelmed by a large list.

Know yourself

Know when you’re at your peak – for many it’s first thing in the morning – and plan your tasks around that. Tasks that require more mental power should be planned for peak time and lighter tasks for when energy wanes, usually after lunch.

Time track to have a better idea of how long things take

Track how long tasks take so that when you’re planning out your calendar you can be more accurate with timescales. Leave some flexibility in your calendar so as to not get stressed when things don’t go to plan.

Summary

Successful calendar management should give you back your time and make you more productive in the time that you have.

If you need help to review your calendar management, then give us a call. 

For more tips on systems and processes that help grow your business, subscribe to our newsletter here.

Get a little superstar treatment by contacting us on:

Email: info@jaxstarsolutions.co.uk

Telephone: 020 3362 4436

Mobile: 07811 393520

Website: https://www.jaxstarsolutions.co.uk/

These are my top 10 new year tips for reducing distractions and managing time more effectively.

1. For more focused time to meet deadlines use the Pomodoro technique. Set a timer for 25 or 50 minutes. Then take a break or do another task for 5 or 10 minutes. Then repeat. Read more here.
2.   Turn your phone off, put it on silent or face-down so you can’t see the screen. If that doesn’t work, put it in another room so you have to get up to check it.

3. Turn off your emails for set periods of time. There are apps to help with this. Boomerang is one that allows you to schedule specific times when your emails will be held back during the day. Like a Do Not Disturb for emails.

4. Use delayed emails. If you don’t want to get a reply straight away or want to get some work done at an unsociable hour, it is useful to use the delayed email option in Microsoft Office.

5. Stop accepting meetings during certain times of the day or days in the week. Have set times that you don’t allow any meetings, so you have time to do the work you want to get done. Schedule this in your diary and stick to it. Better yet, if you can avoid the meeting altogether, all the better.

6. Schedule certain types of tasks to be completed in the same time slot. For example, booking appointments can be done between 4 and 5 pm. 

7. Delegate. It’s a skill that takes time and practice to master. But you must want to delegate, you need to know what to delegate and who to delegate to. To help with this I’ve developed the Three Column Technique. Read more here or watch the video here.

8. Divert your phone. I recommend a professional phone answering service that you can use on a pay as you go basis and turn on and off as you need to. It’s important to choose a reputable company like this so your callers get a competent call handler without knowing it’s a call handler. Do your research for the best ones around. To save you time I highly recommend Jam. Learn more here. 

9. Streamline your to-do list. Research says we only cross off three things on to-do lists in a day. So instead of rewriting the whole list daily, at the end of each day write just three things to do for the next day. This reduces stress from guilt and increases our sense of achievement. Plus, it saves time writing out endlessly long to-do lists.

10. Work-life blend. Replacing the word ‘balance’ with ‘blend’ shatters the implication that our work or personal life suffers when we put more effort into one or the other. We know that our work and life is more of a blend. Some days we work harder and some days we play harder. We can enjoy both taking personal time and working hard. It doesn’t need to come at the expense of feeling guilty. 

For more tips on hitting the ground running in the new year, subscribe to our newsletter here.

Contact us about how we can help you manage your time and distractions effectively, and to get a little superstar treatment, on:

Email: info@jaxstarsolutions.co.uk

Telephone: 020 3362 4436

Mobile: 07811 393520

Website: https://www.jaxstarsolutions.co.uk/