How To Manage Your Schedule Like A Pro
Filling in your appointments and ensuring sure there are no overlaps isn't always as straightforward as designing a calendar. It's also a good idea to apply certain tips and tactics to keep your calendar going smoothly, especially if you're juggling other elements of your life and foresee some unexpected adjustments. Calendar management is nearly a profession in and of itself. It needs continual attention and upkeep. Otherwise, you risk being overburdened with trivial activities and unable to devote time to genuinely meaningful initiatives and events. This is where the information in this guide comes in. We'll go over some best practices calendar management for making the most of your schedules to help you arrange your calendar more efficiently:
Use A Flexible Meeting Duration Rather Than A One-Size-Fits-All Approach
When scheduling meetings, it's easy to set them for 30 minutes or an hour at random. However, being more exact with your schedule has its advantages. If you spend even a few minutes thinking about how long a meeting should last, you may be able to save time on the day of the meeting. For example, if you normally arrange a 30-minute phone meeting but know you can do the assignment in 15 minutes, schedule it for 15 minutes. Then make a commitment to yourself and your meeting partner. That extra 15 minutes might be used to catch up on emails, prepare meeting notes, or even grab a quick lunch. After all, you have a limited amount of time.
Make Use Of A Meeting-Planning Tool
Scheduling those meetings takes time away from your already hectic schedule. Consider employing an automatic meeting setup tool if you're constantly making new meetings with customers or co-workers.
You may specify your availability and simply email a link to your meeting partners using one of these solutions. They may go to the URL, look at the available time slots, and pick the one that best suits their needs. And then there was a bang. Without all the back-and-forth, you have a meeting ready to go.
By using IM Photo Editor as calendar management tools to create your own calendar, you may cooperate with co-workers and clients to come up with a design that works for you.
Use The Pomodoro Method
We are all plagued by procrastination. The Pomodoro Technique, on the other hand, can be beneficial. This productivity strategy, developed in the 1990s by entrepreneur Francesco Cirillo, is excellent for breaking down huge jobs or completing a succession of activities in short intervals.
It specifies that you work for 25 minutes, then take a five-minute break, and so on. It is suggested that you complete four of these cycles before taking a lengthier hiatus. As a consequence, you should be able to stay extremely concentrated during those 25-minute sprints, take short breaks, and finally finish your assignment.
Create Transitional Gaps
You can find yourself scheduling activities and meetings back-to-back when managing your calendar. It may appear that you are cramming as much as possible into your day. However, resist the impulse to do so. If you leave spaces in your calendar for transitions between appointments and projects, you'll thank yourself.
Unexpected obligations arise, important emails must be responded to, the dog must be walked, or you simply require a brief break. These are all good reasons to leave some breathing room in your schedule. Otherwise, you risk falling behind schedule and completing your day much later than planned.
Make Time For Planning
It may sound ridiculous, but you will need to prepare for planning. Setting aside the time to take this seriously is a chore in and of itself, and it will save you time and headache in the long run. If you use a weekly calendar, set aside time at the start or conclusion of each week to sit down and finalize your plan. Allow room in unknown areas, and possibly arrange some time at the start of those empty days to reorganize your calendar if necessary.
Reminders Can Be Launched
You may create reminders in a scheduler like Google Calendar to give you a digital nudge when you need to accomplish a job, such as booking a restaurant reservation. Simply click on empty space as if you were establishing a new event, but instead select "Reminder." You'll get a message at the time you specified, and when you're done, you may mark the job as completed.
Integrate With Your Content Management System (CMS) Or Chat Platform
Calendars don't have to be self-contained. They can be linked to other platforms such as a chat app or a content management system (CMS). Assume you're a marketer who does proactive content marketing. Integrating your calendar with your content management system or social media scheduling software might save you time and effort. It prevents you from scheduling your content tasks in conflict with other meetings and responsibilities. It also helps you stay on track with your content strategy.
Examine Your Previous Calendars
In the end, the finest calendar management skills you can learn from is you. You are the greatest judge of what you require for a successful day, week, or month. You also have the ability to learn from your accomplishments and failures in order to improve in the future. That's why it's crucial to review your previous calendars on a regular basis, such as once a month or once a quarter. You may do a monthly audit in four easy stages, as suggested by Jory MacKay of the RescueTime tool:
- Make a list of your top priorities from the previous month. What would you like to have completed if you had more time?
- Examine your calendar from the previous month. Make a list of the activities you really did.
- Organize such activities into priority groups. What proportion of your time did you actually devote to achieving those goals? As Productivity501 recommends, you may categorize activities into "extremely important," "less important," and "worthless" categories.
- Set new goals and objectives for the coming month. How much time would you like to devote to each of your priorities? Which activities are you able to eliminate from your schedule?
You'll be considerably more able to manage your schedule if you use this audit as a guide. With IM picture editor's Calendar, you can create an even more smooth plan for the weeks and months ahead making it the best practice calendar management.