If you’re an executive, consultant, or business owner, you know that your task to time ratio is crucial. Below we will give you tips to manage your calendar like a pro, saving time and money!
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You drudge, drudge, and then you drudge some more. Without really putting efforts into the one thing that could make or break success – efficient time management.
Here are 7 ways to help you make sure you work smart (and not necessarily hard) –
If you’re an executive, consultant, or business owner, you know that your task to time ratio is crucial.
The shift from offline meetings or conferences to virtual setups has by no means reduced the number of such meetings. In fact, with the attendance of such meetings becoming possible from literally any part of the world (thanks to the democratization of live video meetings), their number has only substantially increased.
For all the 8 working hours in the day, how do you balance and streamline your work without adversely affecting your productivity and health?
This is exactly where calendar management comes into the picture.
We’ve got 7 steps for you to get the most out of your day – using calendar management.
Calendar management is a cognitive skill very few have mastered. It is the process of applying priority management, project management, and time management to optimize your calendar. It is based on understanding where your time is best spent, and then planning your calendar accordingly. At this point, some projects managers use an online calendar planner, some of them use other planning tools.
You probably already know what tasks your work involves, whether you’re a consultant, business owner, executive, marketer, doctor, lawyer, or anything else. Maybe you’re already using Outlook or Google Calendar to track your appointments.
But if you’re just accepting any task or meeting that comes in and randomly scheduling it somewhere in the week, you’re probably wasting hours every day. Often managed by an assistant, calendar management is a process of planning out the series of work, for an executive or self.
Whether it’s phone calls, scheduling a meeting or any other important tasks. Apart from the proper scheduling, there is delegation – another useful skill. For example, you can delegate some of the paperwork to the assistants and pay for papers instead of spending your time on them.
After all, you want to work smart, not hard, right?
But calendar management isn’t easy.
This is where learning these 7 key skills comes in handy.
So what tools is Casey using to achieve his incredibly efficient setup? He shared his top 7 recommendations for simplifying your business and maximizing your time using these SaaS tools for business.
Let’s get started…
Choosing the perfect organizer for yourself is key.
A book with sticky notes might work for some while others might have a penchant for a digital calendar app!
Although, the tactility of a physical calendar or organizer is quite simple - it comes at a price. It’s easier to forget and neglect what you’ve scribbled down in your physical organiser.
On the other hand, a digital calendar app lets you -
1. Set reminders for specific tasks
2. Update, remove or edit tasks
3. Access your organisation data easily
4. Save a lot of time!
Thanks to smartphones and technology, they’re quite portable too!
This is not to say that physical tools for organising your work (notebooks, diaries and so on) are not useful at all.
Because let’s face it - physical or digital, the goal of the organiser tool is to help you manage your time effectively. What you choose depends on what you’re most comfortable with.
It’s just that the feasibility of physical organiser tools in the 21st century pales against the charm and practicality of their digital counterparts.
Choosing an organization tool isn’t enough – you’ve got to prioritize.
The first step to prioritizing your work is to break down and analyze the importance of every task.
To make this simpler, consider using “The Eisenhower Matrix”. Used as a priority manager, it helps build a priority management calendar. Beyond that, the security of your online manager tool should be your priority as well. For this purpose, you can apply various security system tools, like cooltechzone.com or some other similar ones. In such a way you’ll build your calendar having confidence in your Eisenhower Matrix proper system activity.
Important and urgent
This represents tasks that are important tasks and need to be done within a very specific amount of time. This normally includes tasks someone else has asked to do with a set deadline. You’re likely to have no trouble prioritizing and finishing these tasks, but make sure that you’re not confusing urgency with importance.
Important but not urgent
The Second quadrant represents important tasks with a slightly relaxed deadline. These tasks should be placed in the middle of the week. The tasks that fall into this category tend to be those that are important but have long term goals and benefits. This is where you’ll have the highest tendency to fall behind.
Urgent but unimportant
The third quadrant consists of the tasks that are urgent but less significant. Here’s where you use the power of “delegation”. Outsource the job to a colleague or someone more suitable. If the task is unavoidable try placing it in the later half of your work day. Try to consciously place distractions that seem urgent but have low benefits into this block - for example, you likely don’t need to be checking your emails and messages all day long, even though they feel urgent.
Unimportant and not urgent
The tasks here are those that are neither very important nor extremely urgent. Try to remove these tasks from the day if possible. This will give you a perspective of ‘what to do next?’. For example, if you are at the end of a project, check your project closure checklist to see if you missed anything. Reviewing your calendar for the week ensures that you do not miss out on important tasks.
Now that your task priorities are set, you can begin arranging them for efficiency.
Task batching is about clubbing together similar tasks to save time and energy.
By grouping similar tasks together you get to singularly focus on one type of work for a certain amount of time - rather than spreading it out throughout the day and doing it haphazardly.
Advantages-
Try to use it along with its two distant cousins - Time Blocking and Time Boxing. Put the three together and you’ve got a foolproof productivity-enhancing system.
You begin by dividing your day in the form of blocks.
Every block represents a special task or a group of tasks that need to be completed. This process is also referred to as calendar blocking time management.
For example, a block can be assigned for just writing proposals. Every proposal you sent must be well researched and written without any typos. To save your time and effort on making proposals, you can use professionals’ help and buy essay papers to manage your work time efficiently. Here you are assigning a time interval for every group of tasks.
Every White line between tasks is a transition period. With the help of time blocking you can reduce it even more.
Advantages
Although it sounds similar to time blocking, the concept behind time boxing is slightly different.
“Time blocking” means you set aside a block of time to do a very specific set of tasks. In that particular time block (or period), you don’t do any other task.
Your focus is to finish that particular set of tasks in that particular time block only. Whereas in “time boxing”, you allocate a fixed amount of time to a planned task. Once the time is up, you stop working on that task. Time boxing ensures you’re spending your time efficiently, especially when paired with an automation tool that eliminates tedious, repetitive tasks.
Roy from Hack My Garage comments: “As a website owner/digital marketing, I’ve come to learn that time management is imperative. When you’re consistent on a regular basis, you’ll get to where you want to go.
Advantages
If you’re an executive, chances are your day-to-day responsibilities differ throughout the week.
Every type of task will demand a different kind of energy.
For example, a webinar or powerpoint presentation will require a whole lot of preparation and energy. Therefore, there’s a lot of merit in placing such tasks after a well-rested holiday or break.
This will give some extra time for preparation if the executive wishes to prepare early. The exhaustion parameter will be removed here. Thus resulting in a more effective and better performance.
The meetings or the final sales for clients can be arranged at the end of the week. All the meetings or sales can be scheduled and tackled on that day.
Many CEOs and executives running multiple companies usually use day theming for giving fair time and attention to each company. This proves effective as it is more streamlined.
“Get Clear, Get Current and Get Creative!” - David Allen( Getting Things Done)
STEP: 1 Get Clear
Review the past week calendar and look if something was missed out or needs a revisit. This will give you a perspective of ‘what to do next?’.
STEP: 2 Get Current
Analyse upcoming tasks and prepare for them beforehand. This will help stay updated and proactive. This will tell you ‘How To Do It?’.
STEP: 3 Get Creative
If done well, time management and calendar management will enable your creativity, not halter it. If you’re not managing your time well, you’ll find yourself occupied with the urgent tasks, whether they are important or not.
Follow this process until a highly optimized version of your calendar is achieved.
A very crucial aspect of monitoring productivity is balancing your work and personal lives well.
From this balance stems mental energy, positivity and overall well-being - all crucial to ensure a healthy working mind.
This is how you can create a personal and professional calendar -
Taking breaks is a must. Don’t go about working around the clock like a robot. Because you’re not one!
You could schedule some phone calls or last-minute additional work during that time - but remember, not every empty slot needs to be filled.
Occasionally, these empty slots can be utilized to do many other things.
The point is to be productive - optimise the way you work. But nothing’s going to work if you’re exhausted or burned out.
New Layout- The calendar layout can be changed at this time and redesigned.
After a hectic work run, it’s good to have a break or a small vacation if possible. This would refresh the mind and prepare you well for the next run.
Catchup and Revisit- If some projects or meetings were missed or not given enough thought, then this is the time to revisit those.
While following the calendar like a North Star, make sure that it does not start controlling you.
In times of mismanagement, you should be able to think and act calmly. Rescheduling some or the other task will always be an option.
Make sure not all tasks you do in a day are too important or too urgent. If some tasks have a tighter deadline, the next set of tasks shouldn’t be more relaxed.
“ A 40-hour time-blocked work week, I estimate, produces the same amount of output as a 60+ hour work week pursued without structure.”- Calvin C. Newport
Calendar Management is a skill to structure and optimize output.
All the aspects need to be carefully planned to avoid any imbalance in the system. Health and the ability to work well are directly proportional. If one goes down the drain, the other will too.
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