Why Your Calendar is Your Remote Team’s BFF 🗓 ❤️
Your online work calendar can help you manage your time and connect your team
One of the topics I commonly discuss in coaching sessions with busy professionals and leaders is time management and feeling overwhelmed. Our current pace of work has left many feeling constantly behind or never-good-enough. Part of this can be addressed through conscious leadership ensuring workloads are appropriate for each team member and they have the resources and training to effectively execute their goals. Another essential aspect is taking better control of your schedule and calendar.
For remote teams, where asynchronous communication is essentially the default mode of communication, controlling calendars is essential. Even in a hybrid or co-located office, calendar management can transform how a team operates and accomplishes goals.
Whether you use Outlook, Google, or some other calendar, there are countless ways to set up and manage a calendar tool. Here are some of my tips for leveraging your calendar for success:
Calendar EVERYTHING. One experienced coach I know often says, “If it’s not in your calendar, it’s not in your heart.” Your calendar shows you what you prioritize. You can look at your week ahead and envision what you’ll accomplish. Then you can look back at the calendar and see whether everything you calendared got you closer to your overall goals. If you want to get it done, put it on your calendar with a reminder!
Open your calendar to your team. Especially in a remote team, you need to give your teammates access to your calendar so they can see when to schedule time with you for calls. There are levels of privacy. You may only want to share that you’re busy, and not your exact activities for each time slot. Either way, it’s important for your calendar to be up-to-date and available for teammates to schedule time with you.
Use tools like Calendly. In addition to opening your calendar for your internal team, you can use tools like Calendly to let external clients or partners schedule time with you in various increments of time. Just link Calendly to your calendars and then share your link. It saves a lot of email back-and-forth just to schedule a call when external partners can scan your calendar for a time that works for their schedule as well.
Cross-schedule your calendars. If you have a few different calendars (for example, a personal one you share with your family, one for your office team, etc.), make sure they are linked up. For appointments on my personal calendar, I send an invite to my work calendar. That way the time is blocked on both calendars so not only do I get the reminder about the appointment, the time is blocked so my colleagues don’t schedule a meeting during that time. Bonus tip: calendar the appointment travel time if you don’t want to conduct calls while you’re driving.
Take advantage of calendar add-ins. Many different apps can be added to Outlook or Google calendars. Zoom, Salesforce, etc. Whatever tool helps you organize yourself and your work, make sure to include it in your calendar program. It can save lots of time when scheduling meetings or tracking your time.
Color-code and label your calendar. In Outlook, I have different colors for each call or activity. For example, blue indicates an internal team meeting. Yellow indicates an external client call. Grey indicates times I’ve blocked for no calls so I can focus. When I look at my calendar each week or month, I can see based on the colors where I spent most of my scheduled time.
Calendar free time. This is my most important tip. When you open up your calendar to your team and external partners, they will claim meeting times via calendar invites. So make sure you protect enough time each day for deep work. Remember, if it’s not in your calendar it’s not in your heart. You have to calendar time for you to focus, think, reflect. Otherwise the tyranny of the urgent will take control of your calendar.
These are just a few of the ways I leverage my calendar to help manage my schedule and time. You probably have your own techniques for managing your calendar and time. Please share with me ways you’ve learned to leverage your calendar for success in either a remote team or co-located office.
Work happy. Live happy. BE happy.
Meredith
Meredith’s coaching helps conscious leaders step courageously into the future of work. Contact her to develop your conscious leadership and transform your organization into the workplace of the future.
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