10 Tips for Managing Your Work Calendar
Invite your work email to any appointments as soon as you add them to your personal calendar. I like to have my work calendar blocked off as quickly as possible for appointments so I hopefully avoid rescheduling meetings.
Color code your calendar to better understand who and what teams are getting your time. I have different colors for:
1x1s
Internal team meetings
External meetings
Dedicated focus time
Build in focus time for specific projects and block your calendar as busy. I block out time a month at a time and then the week prior, update the title to specific projects that need to get done.
Block your calendar for transition time — whether it be that you have a long meeting and you know you’ll need some extra time or if you have an appointment and need time to eat back to your computer.
Block drop off and pick up time for the kids, including transition time; I make these public on my calendar so people know that this is consistent and that I’ll be in my car if anything really urgent comes up
Schedule Office Hours – if you start to have too many 1x1 calls pop up with similar teams, try hosting an hour long office hours; you can either create a ‘sign up’ sheet or invite others and open the floor to questions
Pick your Top Three daily and weekly — and when you’re about to start another project, look back to your list.
Change the meeting duration. If you think you only need 15 minutes, schedule a 15 minute call. It’s amazing how efficient people can be in a shorter call time. You can also start at the :05 mark and/or end at :55 if you’re struggling to make it to meetings on time. I like to wrap five minutes earlier to leave time for notes and quick action items so the end of day list doesn’t get unbearably long.
Schedule reoccurring Friday afternoon meetings for week ahead planning: During this time, I try to remove 20% for the following week. Then I update my Focus Time blocks for specific projects and double check that I haven’t missed any personal or family appointments. I also look through to determine if I need anything from anyone else to be more successful in a meeting or make more progress on a project to make sure I follow up sooner rather than later.
Decline, propose new times or ask for an agenda if you’re not sure if you need to be in a meeting.
