Using a Calendar to Schedule Your Time
How to Use a Calendar to Schedule your Time
Calendars can be useful across many different stages and phases of life. Whether it’s school planning, freelance, 9-5, or just personal planning, calendars help us stay organized and on top of our days, weeks, months, and years.
There are even many different options for calendars, you have web-based calendars, calendar apps, desk calendars, personal calendars; they can be on your phone, or even quickly accessible on your watch. Even though there are multiple different options, they all function very similarly, and when used correctly can be a huge asset to keeping your entire life organized and in check.
Identify the things that need to be accomplished
- First things first, we need to get a grasp of what exactly needs to be done in a day. Usually, I have found that doing a download where I take about 10-15 minutes to write everything that I can possibly think of that I need to get done works wonders. It allows you to not worry about when things need to be done and to what extent, but more of a task vomit if you will.
Prioritize
- Once you have everything down that you need to do, then it comes to prioritizing them. Which things need to be done urgently? Which can wait? Which ones take the least amount of time? Which ones take the most amount of time? Organize them into these lists. Take your entire list and rank them from most urgent to least, you can even put 'due dates' next to your tasks.
Schedule
- Next comes the fun part, actually putting them into your calendar. You can use any calendar, whether it’s a desk calendar, a wall calendar, or an app on your phone that you take advantage of. For me, I find that I love the customizability of Google Calendar. I can take it with me on the go, and pull it up on my computer or on my phone depending on my needs for the day. For the actual input, you’ll want to start with the things that are high priority and have a hard set due date, and then slowly sift in other things.
Execute
- The last portion, execute! Now that you have all of your events beautifully plugged into your calendar, the last thing to do is just simply do what you do best. Execute your perfectly planned day.
Scheduling your days and weeks is a beyond useful skill. When you block off your time on your calendar, you’re actually more flexible. Being able to see where you have free time, and where you have commitments is worth its weight in gold. Want to set aside a time for family in between work calls? You're able to take a look at your calendar and instantly know when you get to fit in a lunch or a meet up with friends and family.
Then comes another crucial piece of scheduling. How do others know when you're available? Whether it's work, school or family, people need to know how to 'get on your calendar'.
When you sync Cal.com with your calendar, it is able to read where the gaps are in your schedule and provide times within those gaps for anyone that wants to spend time or meet with you. By blocking off the time you need to do your important work, you can make the most out of your free time to sync with others or schedule other external things (like a trip to the local coffee shop).