Optimize Your Daily Productivity Using Automated Scheduling Software

TLDR: YouCanBookMe’s automated scheduling software not only creates a better booking experience for your clients - it also allows you to tailor your availability and create custom booking flows to best suit the needs of your clients, and your business schedule. When your days feel overwhelmed with meetings, customizing your schedule to optimize client attendance, having clear agendas, and creating a culture of canceling unneeded emails can free up some much needed time in your schedule to tackle your to-do list.

Set up your free YouCanBookMe booking page today here!

Look at your to-do list. But then come back here.

Did you just get instant anxiety from all of the tasks piling up?

When a person’s profession is basically run by their automated scheduling software, and their days revolve around spending a significant amount of time in meetings throughout the day - one extra meeting, or one run-away sidebar in a Zoom, can totally obliterate your plans for the day.?

Sadly, there isn’t a magic wand you can wave to erase all the meetings from your day… we tried, apparently deleting a call with your boss is frowned upon.?

However, there are a few small things you can do to ease the impact of those meetings on your day - freeing you up to actually cross a couple items off of your to-do list. We compiled the best-practices for booking we learned in facilitating 1M+ bookings last year. Read on to learn how pairing your automated scheduling software with best practices can give you breathing room in your schedule, or book a demo here and we’ll show you ourselves!

Being able to easily share a link to your automated scheduling software so your customers, colleagues, prospects, job candidates, students, etc can schedule time with you is one of the major benefits of online scheduling tools. It single-handedly reduces the back and forth of all the emails you have to send to find a time that works for everyone.?

Sure, there are lots of ways to display the free times in your calendar. But they aren’t all equal - especially when you consider privacy, and how much control you have over your availability.

Using an automated scheduling software tool gives a professional vibe, easily keeps a record of attendees, and lets you reach out to people who aren’t in the same office, state, or even country!?

It can be really frustrating and time consuming to send back and forth emails to find the right time. Especially when there are several scheduling tools on the market, like YouCanBookMe, to make the booking experience frictionless. When you make it easier to book time on a calendar, the likelihood of actually booking time increases.??

If meeting bookings are a core part of your business, it’s important to keep the most popular booking times open and available for existing and potential clients to pick from.?

ONE. Schedule your day for optimal meeting attendance.        

Open up your availability for the optimal booking times!

According to our research, the most popular meeting time is 10 AM—not just for the morning, but for the entire day!

If you’re a fan of morning meetings, you’ll be best off scheduling them mid-morning, between 9 AM and 11 AM, a.k.a. the sweet spot after the start of a traditional workday and before a lunchtime break.

While morning meetings start to spike at 8 AM, meetings at that time are still 57% less popular than those at 9 AM and a whopping 70% less popular than those at 10 AM.

Not really a morning meeting person? You’re not alone!?

After the mid-morning rush, the number of meetings dips at noon (presumably for lunch), but then it’s full speed ahead.

??Bonus Insight: Cancelation and rescheduling rates don’t significantly increase for meetings booked at noon, so if you need to schedule a meeting for 12 PM, it’s still a relatively stable time to do so.

Set up your free YouCanBookMe booking page today here!

While the highest surge in meetings occurs mid-morning, afternoons take the lead in total booked meetings.

A staggering 58% of all meetings are scheduled for after 12 PM, indicating a preference for afternoon meetings over morning ones.

The top spot for the most popular afternoon meeting time goes to 2 PM, closely followed by 1 PM and 3 PM.

Plan your administrative time during the times of highest cancellation rates.

Knowing that the best times of day for meetings are 9 AM to 11 AM, and 1PM to 4PM, it’s best to schedule your administrative time for the hours you are least likely to have a productive meeting. Meetings booked for 4 PM win the award for the highest combined canceling and rescheduling rates during standard working hours - leaving a great opportunity to edit your automated scheduling software availability, and ending your day with some meeting-free time to clear your to-do list.

Eager to learn more about booking trends and how they can affect your schedule? Click here!

TWO. Set meeting objectives.        

Send out a clear meeting agenda in advance, outlining the purpose of the meeting, desired outcomes, and any pre-reading or preparation needed by attendees. This not only ensures everyone comes prepared to discuss, but also offers participants the opportunity to add any pressing matters to the meeting agenda beforehand. This fosters more productive meetings in the long run. As an added bonus - if Jerry from the accounting department keeps getting side-tracked (for the 200th time) sharing anecdotes about that big bass he caught fishing last summer - you can gently guide his attention back to the agenda, so that you can conclude the meeting in as timely a manner as possible.

Are you a sales leader? Check out some custom sales team meeting agenda templates here to help you run better meetings, motivate your team, and close more deals!

THREE. This meeting could have been an email.        

We’ve all attended those meetings that felt … superfluous. Sometimes, it feels like our automated scheduling software program is forever lighting up with meetings that are essentially a waste of time. You can’t possibly have as productive of a day, if your team books time with you every half hour to talk about small details.?

Requesting the meeting agenda in advance is a great opportunity to cancel meetings where appropriate. If you are able to deliver a simple answer that solves the hypothetical problems being discussed - a quick email could bring that planned meeting to a close before it even begins.?

Building a policy and culture of understanding when a meeting is appropriate can be an arduous journey, but it’s certainly worth the energy when your spending less time in that stuffy board room, next to that fellow from the customer service department who desperately needs to invest in deodorant (side note: if you don’t think your office has a smelly person… it might be you).?

Concluding Thoughts        

You’re busy.?

You have a million and one things on your to-do list during the work week.?

You can’t afford for it to bleed into your personal time, because you’ve got a million and one things to do there too.?

The best thing you can do is maximize your time during your 9-5 - strategically blocking out your schedule to optimize your bookings, set aside some designated admin time during the slower periods of the day, build agendas into your meetings to keep everyone on track, and action what you can to reduce the overall amount of meetings in your day by encouraging quick problems to be solved electronically.?

Will all of this make your paperwork backlog disappear and cause that giant pile of dirty laundry to magically cleaned? Absolutely not. But gaining just a little bit more time into your day can give you some breathing room to not feel overwhelmed - and that bit of breathing room can make all the difference in the world.?

Ready to add some breathing room into your schedule?

Set up your free YouCanBookMe booking page today here!

Or, if you’d love a bit more information on how you can customize your booking page and availability to maintain a balance in your schedule, book a demo now!?