Mastering Calendar Management: The Foundation of Your Success

Your schedule is the blueprint for your professional life and your calendar provides the foundation for how everything gets done. Knowing when and where you need to be and who you will be meeting with should all be contained in your calendar. This foundation allows business leaders to stay out of the day-to-day and focus on their genius zones.

A calendar that is scheduled with back-to-back meetings, all day, every day, that involves you or your assistant to be constantly adjusting appointment times for conflicts or meetings that run over time, is not calendar management. This is what I refer to as "chaos control" and is often confused by executives and assistants as managing a busy executive's calendar. Chaos control is not sustainable and will lead to burn-out, overwhelm, lack of productivity, missed deadlines, and always running late. 

Calendar management is the ultimate flex every executive needs to master to effectively manage their time for long-term success. The first step is to determine how you will use your time to efficiently run your day, ensuring all meetings are productive and aligned to the business priorities and your personal goals. 

Calendar Management is not… 

…Back-to-back meetings, all day, every day with no breaks for bio needs or meals, or time set aside for thinking, planning, and doing work, or allowance for personal appointments and family commitments.

Calendar Management is also not employing a scheduling tool. A scheduling tool like Calendly is a way to share available times on your calendar with no direct communication. It can not take into account that you may need to travel to your next appointment, avoid back-to-back meetings, or do not take meetings after 3p on Thursdays. You will need to set-up your calendar to reflect the ways you are managing your time for this type of scheduling tool to be effective for calendar management.

Calendar Management is… 

…Defining how you use your time. The following are ways to help you effectively and strategically manage your time through your calendar:

Set aside time every day that is yours before the business day starts.

You may rise early and like to journal, get in a morning work-out, walk the dog, or take the kids to school, etc. Whatever, this is your time to set aside each morning or at least 2-3 times a week.

Indicate the time your first meeting of the day will start.

This is your benchmark start of the business day. There will be times when you will need to schedule something earlier, but having a regular start time allows you to fit your personal priorities into your day. The exceptions to schedule early meetings should not become the rule.

• Indicate the time when each business day ends.

• For instance, no meetings scheduled after 5p.

• Allocate time every day for lunch.

A working lunch is good once or twice a week - for example my CEO & CFO would meet over lunch every Monday, it was essentially their weekly 1:1. Allow yourself this time in the middle of the day - it gives you a chance to prepare for the afternoon or review notes from the morning.

Allocate your working/planning/thinking time blocks during the day or week.

Are you a morning or afternoon person? Do you work in the evening after kids go to bed?

Allocate time blocks for various types of meetings. For instance:

• Internal team meetings or individual 1:1s.

  
  

• External meetings for sales, client development, networking, etc.

  
  

• Media, interviews, podcasts, pr, etc.

  
  

• Do not stack meetings longer than 90 mins without a break.

  
  

Note which days you prefer to travel. 

For instance, only Tuesday-Thursday - always home on Fridays

Note all work from home days, monthly, quarterly, annual vacations, conferences, school and holiday breaks.

Always manage the day, week, month, year ahead to adjust for changing plans or priorities.

Every busy executive's calendar is vital to how they get things done, yet it is a challenge to manage effectively while coordinating with other schedules and competing priorities. Excellence in calendar management is often the top capability required of a high-level executive assistant. Executives know the demands on their time are immense and managing their calendar directly impacts their ability to focus on strategic priorities that move the business forward. Working alongside every successful executive is their executive assistant, ensuring they can stay working in their genius zones.

Do you need help with calendar management and defining how you use your time? Our executive assistants at onHand Executive Services have the expertise and solutions to support you. Contact Us! https://StephanieHandcoaching.com