3 Tips For Managing Your Business Calendar For Greater Productivity
One of the podcasts I listen to is Business School with Sharran Srivatsaa. He’s a mega successful entrepreneur with a wealth of knowledge to share. In one of the episodes, he talked about 3 tips to help manage your calendar for greater productivity.
I thought these ideas sounded like they could be effective and so I started using them. What I’ve learned is that whether you’re an entrepreneur or not, these tips can help you stay focused and get more done during the workday.
Because of my dedication to you guys I wanted to compile a quick blog post to pass these insights onto you.
Diving in … here are the 3 tips:
1. Stack Not Splatter
When you’re scheduling meetings, schedule them close together. For example, if you have one that is from 10:00am-10:30am, try to book your next one for 10:30am-11:00am instead of later in the day.
There are a few advantages to doing this.
You’re Already in a Meeting Mindset
When you splatter your meetings, you have no way of focusing on a task long enough because you’re shifting from meeting mode to work mode. For greater productivity, stacking meetings together will allow you to have larger blocks of time to concentrate on your work.
Creates a Hard Stop on the Meeting
I’ve noticed by doing this at Ballantine, I’ve been able to keep meetings from creeping. Since there is another meeting I have to get to, it makes it easy to end on time and respect everyone’s time.
What’s been working well for me is to schedule my meetings in the late morning and leave my afternoon open for focused work. This may not be the best choice for you … mornings may be better for your focus. Just try different schedules and figure out what works best for you.
2. Review Preview
Sharren talked about doing a review/preview on Sundays. He looks at the previous week to see what meetings he had and what he committed to in those meetings. Then he views the coming week to see what he has going on and needs to prepare for.
To help me keep track of what I owe clients, I create a to-do list in my Gmail. We use Gsuite so this makes it easier for me to keep track of things this way.
It’s nice to see what the previous week was like and what I worked on. I use it as time to celebrate what I completed. This is a personal development tip that I share a lot here on the blog. It’s important to celebrate your wins, no matter how small.
In addition to reviewing the previous week, I take time to look at the meetings in the coming week. I make a list of what I need to get together in order to have a successful meeting … this way I’m not going into a meeting unprepared.
3. Time Blocking
Time blocking is a tip I picked up from the Optimize.me course I took. Also, a few of the guys in my mastermind use time blocking every day to focus on tasks.
The general gist is that you need to carve out time in your calendar to work on important tasks that will move your business forward.
I don’t personally create time blocks every single day because I have a messy schedule right now as I write this blog … long story But, if I have something I need to work on, I schedule a time for it in my calendar. Usually, I do this as part of my Sunday preview time.
I use Google calendar and I block off the time of the week I want to work on the task … this way, meetings don’t end up getting scheduled during that block.
Key Takeaways
- Group your meetings together so you have bigger blocks of time available for focused work.
- Look at the previous week and how things went … and what follow-up is needed.
- Review the upcoming week and create a to-do list based on what’s on your schedule.
- Block out time on your calendar to work on big projects.