Managing Your Work Calendar

Time is one of the most precious resources you have as a leader.

Unfortunately, there never seems to be enough of it during the workday to accomplish your tasks and achieve your goals. Competing demands, multiple priorities, and overlapping commitments can command your attention and, too often, consume your energy. Organizations succeed when their leaders have optimal capacity to think and act strategically, prioritize the work that has the greatest impact, and exercise business judgment to drive that work forward.

Calendar management enables leaders to use their time and energy more efficiently, thereby enhancing their productivity and contributing to a healthy work-life balance.

In addition to the time management benefits, leaders who manage their calendars effectively have a clear sense at the end of each month of how well they are using their time and are better positioned to make necessary changes.

Successful leaders:

• Assess the urgency and importance of tasks to appropriately complete, schedule, delegate, or eliminate them

• Reserve uninterrupted time on their calendar for planning and deep work

• Consistently use the built-in Outlook functions and features to manage their calendar

  
  

To assist in managing your calendar, use the Eisenhower Decision Matrix to categorize and prioritize your tasks.

Consider these additional tips to manage your calendar effectively.

General

• Make a habit of reviewing your calendar for the following week each Friday to refresh your recollection of upcoming important meetings, activities, and tasks.

• Review your calendar for the next day the day before. Use this time to update your calendar to accommodate shifts in your availability, cancelled/postponed meetings or obligations, or last-minute changes in your priorities.

• Decline invitations to meetings that are not relevant to you or for which you bring minimal value.

• Become attuned with your natural energy peaks and valleys. To the extent possible, schedule your most consequential work during those times of the day when you typically experience higher energy and greater focus.

Reserving Time on Your Calendar

• Reserve time on your calendar for deep work for which you require uninterrupted time to focus. This includes, for instance, strategy development, resource planning, completing documentation, and continuing education.

• For more intense tasks, consider changing your calendar status from “Busy” to “Out of Office.”

• Incorporate meeting preparation and administrative planning time on your calendar.

Scheduling Meetings and Other Activities

• Whenever possible, avoid scheduling back-to-back meetings. If this cannot be avoided, include a 5 to 15-minute buffer between the meetings to enable you and your attendees to wrap up their previous meeting/work, take a quick break, and then join your meeting.

• Schedule other activities on your calendar including exercise, personal appointments, family commitments, business development and networking events, and important project-related deadlines.

• Schedule specific time at the beginning, throughout, and/or end of your day to check and reply to email.

Using Outlook Features

• Use the built-in categorization feature to assign colors to your meetings and activities. Develop a system to assign specific colors according to the type of activity, project affiliation, priority level, cadence frequency, and internal versus external designation. This enables you to easily see at-a-glance how you are spending your time.

• Set reminders for meetings, activities, and tasks at customized intervals. For example, suppose you committed to make an important presentation during a meeting in two weeks. As you begin work on your presentation, you might schedule email reminders five days in advance and 1 hour in advance of the meeting date and time.

• Delegate access to your calendar to your administrative support assistant to enable them to create email messages or respond to meeting requests on your behalf.

Conclusion

As a leader, maximizing the return on your time investment is an imperative. Use a decision matrix to prioritize your tasks and adopt key practices to methodically manage your calendar. Use the simple strategies described in this post to reserve time and schedule your meetings and activities. Last, be sure to leverage helpful Outlook features to ease your administrative burden and instantly view your most important priorities.

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