7 Key Tips to Master Your Calendar!

In writing this article, I’m sensitive that many people are in a customer service or customer facing position and are required to spend their entire day dedicated to reacting to people’s needs and demands, but this article is not for them. It’s for the Leader who has a clear vision of what they hope to accomplish during their day, but gets distracted “putting out fires” and rarely “gets the time” to finish the things that are actually important for them to finish. Hopefully the steps outlined will help you be more productive during YOUR day!

Not long ago I was listening to Brendon Burchard talking extensively about the true test of whether or not you are living your life with real purpose and clarity. After learning what his clients top priorities in business and life were, he would then sit down with a new client and review their previous months calendar and evaluate how much of their schedule was actually dedicated to those priorities. In his opinion, a true “high performance” practitioner should spend at least 60% of their time dedicated to accomplishing their true priorities, and the other 40% resolving other demands of their position.

When I heard him share that practice, I immediately went to my calendar to perform the same test on myself and see how I performed. Not surprisingly, I was a complete failure. There were several weeks where I couldn’t even see a half hour spent on some of the most important objectives I was trying to accomplish. Looking with this in mind gave me a lot of consternation over the fact that most of my time was spent in a very reactionary manner. 

There were blocks of time in the morning dedicated to checking emails before I even attempted to get to anything purposeful in my day. I came to understand that a morning email check can sometimes work out OK, but generally causes a huge problem in trying to adhere to the priorities you originally had planned for the day. How many times have you started your day off with eagerness, only to find that someone sent an email with something important enough for you to blow your entire morning trying to make them happy? 

STOP IT! Mornings are too important to just give it away to your inbox! Most of the “fires” leaders are asked to put out can wait for a few hours while they spend time knocking out mission critical objectives only they can perform. Here are a few calendaring steps I have learned over the past few months to actually get to the most important objectives checked off while balancing the demands of my position and staying motivated to keep people happy. 

7 Key Steps to Mastering your Calendar

1. Be Clear What NEEDS To Get Done - Let’s be honest, many of us pack our schedule with things to make us busy, just for the sake of being busy! Do you really need to be at that networking meeting? Do you really need to hold another team meeting right in the middle of the most productive time of day? Probably not! As Stephen Covey used to say, “The main thing, is to keep main thing, the main thing.” Before anything goes on your calendar, make a very clear list of the things that are truly dependent on you, and will help move you towards the goals you have set for yourself. For me, I typically spend 3-5 minutes clearing my mind meditating before I start adding things to my calendar.
2. Keep Mornings Sacred! - Most people think more clearly, have more energy, and are just more efficient during the morning hours of the day. THIS is the time when you can achieve greater success in performing your most critical tasks. Schedule it wisely. If this means you need to show up a little early to keep yourself free of interruptions, then do it! Don’t be robbed of this special time of day to get your best work done!
3. Be Disciplined - Plan in blocks of 30 minutes to put towards critical tasks you have been putting off and be disciplined in holding yourself to that block of time. If you feel like you didn’t allocate enough time to get that task done… plan better next time, and MOVE ON! You will find yourself feeling frustrated and overwhelmed if you end up bleeding into the next time slot trying to finish something from the previous block of time and not even starting the next project. Just be glad you got a solid chunk knocked out of the project you were working on and get to the next one. You may be able to bump the remainder of that project into your flex time later in the day. 
4. Plan your Inbox Checks - Yep… Don’t let your inbox dictate your schedule… rather, schedule a 30 minute block a couple of times a day to check new messages. Generally, most people sending you emails can wait a few hours before they get a response from you. If it’s truly urgent, people will typically make a call to you. For me, I’ve found that days where I don’t even look at my inbox till noon are my best days! I then do another inbox check at 3:30 to make sure there's nothing important that needs to happen before the end of the day. Often times, needs expressed at my 3:30 inbox check end up on my morning to do list, or I'm able to delegate them to the appropriate person and not worry about  any longer.
5. Schedule at least 2 hours of Flex Time - What is flex time? This is the time of day that you can use to bounce projects that you were close to finishing from earlier that day, or use it to fill in with projects coming from “fires” you discover in your inbox. I keep a list of soft projects that I want to get done, but aren’t mission critical. If I get interrupted by something urgent, it’s not gonna hurt too bad. Make this time consistent so your people know that it’s a better time to pop in to your office during that block of time than during your sacred morning time. Be clear to your people how you are operating and don’t be surprised if they become more efficient by watching your example!
6. Use Tools! - How many times have you spent 4 or 5 emails trying to get a meeting scheduled with someone? Stop wasting time! There are plenty of tools out there that make scheduling as simple as a link in your first email requesting a meetup that allows the other person a chance to get a glimpse into your schedule and match it up with a time that works for them. In addition, you can actually setup confirmations, reminders, and steps to make the meeting more productive right in the software. I use calendly, but am aware there are many options in this space. You may find other tools that help to automate time wasters like this one. 
7. Track ACTUAL time - Throughout the day, update what projects you actually spent your time on, and bounce important things you didn’t get to into your flex time. Never let your key objectives go without being rescheduled, or adding more time to finish the task. Keep your calendar as an open browser ALL DAY and continually keep it updated! 

I have been amazed at how much more effective I have become over the past few months by using these key steps in planning my day. It is SO motivating to feel like you are actually knocking important tasks off of your to do list! I have no doubt that many of you already have some scheduling practices that work well for you, but I hope that these key steps may help you as much as they have helped me! 

Make the things that only you can do a priority in your day, and you will be amazed at how fulfilled your life starts to feel. At the end of each week, I like to review my calendar and compare what I actually spent my time on with the key objectives I was hoping to get done that week. This simple practice makes it a lot easier for me to see when and where I need to allocate appropriate times for certain types of activities so that I can keep my momentum going when I’m in the moment. 

Some personal perks I’ve noticed as a result of this practice. 

• Getting things done I’ve put off for months
• Become more disciplined with my time
• Become more sensitive to other peoples valuable time
• I give a better expectation for completion of projects to my clients and staff
• Become better at delegating the things I won’t realistically get to

If those sound like areas YOU would like to improve on… Give it a one week attempt! I’d love to hear feedback on successes or other things YOU have done to improve your effectiveness in using your calendar in your life. Tag someone who you know could use some help in this area!

This article was originally written and posted on Todds Blog at toddwestra.com