How to achieve effective calendar management

You can achieve an effective calendar that will help you “PA your Day” and achieve amazing things in your life. Try some of these tips today.

Schedule your day.

Before you leave the office or your desk at night, schedule your next day activities. Remember to block out time to eat and time to exercise.

Block out regular meetings in advance.

If you have a regular meeting each week or month or family commitment, write in all of these dates in one sitting. This way you will never forget and you won’t double book yourself. You might like to colour code these regular meetings.

Block out travel time to and from meetings.

Make sure you allow sufficient time to get to and from your meetings. During your travel time you may like to return calls (on a hands free of course), remind someone you are thinking about them, listen to a motivational CD or spend the time thinking about one of your projects. Use this travel time wisely. You should also consider if you really need to travel to a meeting – why not try a teleconference instead?

Block out time to perform follow up activities from each meeting.

This will allow you time to action minutes, follow up on projects and create the communications required as a result of the meeting. By disciplining yourself to do it after each meeting you will not forget items and the information will be fresh in your mind.

Book times to complete regular tasks i.e. weekly reports, project updates and monthly newsletters.

Don’t leave these until the last minute to cause you frustration and don’t procrastinate. Book the time to do these tasks and stick to it.

Block out vacations in your diary well in advance of when you want to take them.

This will allow you sufficient time to plan for your holiday, upskill someone else to do your role while you are away and time to process your leave application. Advise those around you when you’ll be away- give them plenty of notice. By educating your clients and colleagues they are less likely to contact you while you are away and this will remove their sense of urgency to get everything done before you leave for holidays. Have you ever had a holiday and come back and wondered “why did I have a break, it would have been easier to stay at work?” Don’t allow this to happen to you – block out vacations in advance.

Protect your time.

If you have a paper or electronic diary that is accessible to others in the office, always ensure you have allocated yourself time to work on tasks or projects by blocking out this time. Only give diary access to those that are in a position to need to book time with you. Provide guidelines to those around you of meeting bookings you will accept to prevent them wasting your time.

Have a back up of your diary.

If you use a paper diary, consider photocopying it occasionally. If you use an electronic diary, synchronize this and back it up weekly. This will prevent any embarrassing situations if you misplace or lost the data from your diary.

If you have a Personal Assistant, explain which appointment can be made without your approval and agree which appointments must be referred to you before approval to book.

This groundwork will ensure your diary is maintained and you are only seeing people that have a direct impact on your results. This is effective diary management.

Use a sticker or colour coding system for bookings and confirmations.

If you are in a position where you are paid for your time i.e. speakers, consultants or trainers, use one colour sticker to hold a date and then another colour once the booking is confirmed.

Prioritise your daily tasks.

Set aside 15 mins each morning to go through your tasks and “to do” lists to decide what will be accomplished today. Group into A – highest priority, important; B – next priority and needs to be done; C – not urgent, not important and possibly doesn’t need to be completed.

Allocate time twice a day to check your emails and respond.

This will allow you to be more disciplined and avoid wasting time reading an email each time it hits your screen.