How do we manage our calendars?

Hello All,

As rightly by said our leaders "I'm Busy doesn't mean I'm Relevant” considering this I would like to share some of the calendar management tips or we can call so -called tricks to manage our calendars.

I strongly remember, when I was in college we invited a guest to have a lecture on the automobile industry. We organised a good event, set up the stage, flowers, standees etc and mandated the whole college to attend that session. The D-Day came and we called guests for status updates, Unfortunately the guest said I'm not available for the lecture today and requested to postpone the event, imagine a situation where gathering all students for this lecture itself was a big task and cancelling on time is another one. 

But learning from the above situation is very important for all of us. That means we should accept / decline the calendar invitation to have a clear idea for the meeting organiser to proceed with.

I have seen the calendars with fully blocked schedules but no invitation is accepted or neither Declined . This creates huge ambiguity across participants and may lead to "I'm Busy means I'm NOT Relevant” kind of situation.

Here are the some of the tips that I used to manage my calendar, working in rocket ship this below tips definitely help you to manage your day better -

1. Setup your calendar first -

Google calendar has amazing features to help your schedules like superman!

a. Enable the keyboard shortcuts (Go to calendar setting and enable the Keyboard shortcut, this will help the below tips to perform in a single click)

b. Set your default view to 5 days > Click “X”

c. Enable the “Show declined events” >This will help you track auto declined events that need to reschedule.

d. Subscribe to important calendars > This will help you have track on other important events / meeting that are not your calendar (for e.g Your manager’s calendar to set quick meetings another one    is ER release calendar)

e. Turn on time insights > This will help you analyse your time consumed in meetings, focus times, etc. (You can go advance in this by setting down the categories and can track them)

f. Set your working locations & working hours.

g. Get daily agenda in email in the morning from Google > First thing in the morning you will receive an email from the calendar about your planned meetings.

h. Enable Speedy Meetings > This will help you set your default meeting as per config or help you wind up your meetings 5 mins earlier. 

That's it for setup ! 

2. Colour Code your calendar - 

Our brain functions better when we put things under a label. Color coding your calendar does the same. It helps you visualize your tasks, It will also enable you to go deep into category wise analytics using colour code.

You can see I have categorised my calendar into Stand-ups, One Time, Recurring , Focus and others (you can do whatever best suits you!)

 3. Schedule more than just meetings (Focus Time, lunch, time off etc) -

Calendar is not about setting meetings alone it's also your personal scheduler, setting the things other than meetings gives us full control on your day planning and can easily visualise how your day looks like.

Examples of things to add to your calendar aside from meetings include:

• Lunch breaks
• Focus time
• Chai breaks etc.   

Setting focus time and enabling the auto decline of the incoming new invitations can help your focus time intact.

4. Say No to Meetings - (Resist the FOMO) -

Generally we keep accepting the invites (or not declining at all) without having a look at our calendars and that leads to overlapped meetings. Say no to the meetings which are not required, overlapping or conflicting. Propose new time to the organiser! Reschedule it!! 

5. Use appointment slots -

Google has a very beautiful feature (underrated) to have appointment slots where you can share a link of your calendar and people can choose your defined appointment slots to set the meetings.

https://calendar.app.google/ay7Kt4TvHZS2NDb46 (check out for my calendar)

6. Let’s look at the 4D’s in-depth -

 Last but not the least the 4D’s will help you sail on a chaotic busy day..!

• Decline - as we discussed above declined wherever required.
• Delegate  - Delegate the invitation, change the invite owner 
• Defer  - Postpone the events wherever required.
• Do - Do attend the meeting!

Using these minimum tips will definitely help you to manage your day better! There are many tips, tools are available over the internet you can check out then as well.

Please let me know if any help is required from my side to set this up on your rocket-ship builder. 

HAPPY DIWALI TO ALL...!!!

Thanks,

Manoj.