Control Your Calendar: How to become powerfully productive

Does it always seem time is moving too quickly, and you are always running right behind it screaming, “wait for me! Wait for me!”

In my teens and early 20s, I was constantly chasing time, and I was almost always late. A lot of factors played into that, but it was something I knew I needed to beat – and fast – if I was going to have a successful career (and, frankly, keep friends in my life).

Over the years, I’ve taken great effort to dig into the deeper behaviors that drive under- or over-productivity in myself and others. And, I’ve also found several strategies to help me manage my time.

As a busy executive, high-performing individual contributor or business owner (like myself), it is easy to feel like time and productivity elude you. When there is too much on your plate, and little-to-none of it is prioritized, you can feel like you are drowning in a sea of to-do lists and Post It Notes

To help you slow down time, or at least catch up with it, here are a few of my tried and true tips for controlling my calendar and being powerfully productive.

Know what is important

At the highest level, you must search yourself and determine what is important. Then, ask yourself if those things are getting the best of you, or if they are being prioritized for things that feel urgent or seem less challenging to complete.

Here’s a great example: self-care and time with my friends and loved ones top my list of things that are most important to me. However, without a strong time management strategy, I’ll easily find myself working 12-hour days and not seeing the light of day – let alone friends and family – for weeks at a time. I’m just hardwired that way, and I have to work on prioritizing what is important in my life.

In your professional life, you must be crystal clear of your goals and the strategies that will get you there. I’m not just talking about long-term, career goals. I’m saying you should be working off a strategic plan that is operationalized and has complementary strategies to drive success. Without clear goals and strategies, you are simply a runner who is running full steam ahead with no finish line in sight.

In other words – you’ll always be busy, but you won’t really be productive.

Question everything – and I do mean everything

When you have identified the most important priorities in your life – and your goals and strategies at work – you must then become comfortable questioning everything before it goes on your calendar or takes time away from those priorities.

Here are some questions you should ask before committing time on your calendar:

• Is this a priority? Does it move me toward my goals?
• Should I be the one attending this meeting/doing this, or should it be someone else?
• Is there another way to accomplish this? A faster way? A way that doesn’t require a meeting?
• Can I participate in this less frequently while still yielding positive results?
• What is the return on the investment of my time doing this?

 Say it with me: “No.”

“No.” This word sends shivers down the spines of every over-achiever and people-pleaser in the world.

But, have you ever tried to say it (and actually stuck to the decision)? If you have, you probably noticed that the word didn’t implode when you uttered that one syllable word of freedom.

If you want to truly take control of your calendar and your time, you have to become an expert at telling others (and yourself) no. Once again, you must understand your priorities, goals and plans. And, you must delegate, move, and back burner things that don’t move the needle.

Trust me, this is difficult to do. It isn’t always easy to tell others no, and it can be even harder to tell yourself no. For example, as I sit here writing this, I’ve just excused myself early from a party so I could wrap up some press releases (my top priority tonight) and work on this post. Of course, what I really wanted to do was stay at the party, ignore my obligations and have fun. But, tonight, I had to tell myself and others “no” and protect my time to take care of priorities.

The more comfortable you become with adding “no” to your vocabulary, and the more you see that the world (and your business) will not crumble when you use the word, the more successful you will be at controlling your calendar, managing your time, and being powerfully productive.

Stop worrying about ‘all the things’

Do you know that multitasking is a bit of a myth? We might technically be able to do more than one thing at once (toggling), but one of those things will suffer in quality. Our calendars – and minds – can only take so much in at any one time and in the course of any given day. I’ve found the most successful people I know are not trying to do ‘all the things’ all the time. Rather, they are trying to do the most important things at any one given time.

After you determine who/what should get the best of you (priorities), you need to know what are the most important things to tackle each and every day –  as priorities can change.  While I have a long, running list of to-dos, I try to keep my eye on one must-do item and two other top to-dos each day.

My must do is critical, and I try to accomplish it as early in the day as possible. The only thing I do before that is give myself a quick win (like cleaning my desk, listening to voicemail, knocking out a few social media posts, etc.) as a quick win always sets a positive tone for the day.

My top two are really important and they are always on my mind when calendar creep (i.e., emails, meeting requests, phone calls, surfing the internet, etc.) starts to take over. Then, I start questioning everything to see if it is worth having to carry my top two over to the next day. Sometimes, I just have to accept a carryover, but more times than not, I will knock these out really quickly because I’m laser focused on three things, not ‘all the things.’

Don’t let people schedule time for you

I once worked at an agency where the culture was the exact opposite of my core personality and the values trampled on my core values (read: not a good fit). One unusual part of this culture was that everyone had full access to my calendar and booked calls and meetings on my behalf. It was almost impossible to plan for anything because each day was being controlled by everyone but me, and my day was changing minute-by-minute, in real time.

That was the first, and last, time I allowed others full control of my calendar. Of course, I make my calendar available for colleagues to look at (and I still encourage people to look for available times to send meeting invites), but I am typically proactive in offering to send meeting invites. That way, I can look at everyone else’s calendars and pick the time that works best for me.

Protect your ‘me-time’ time like it’s your job

Beyond offering to schedule most of my meetings, I also have recurring appointments on my calendar that are held for ‘me time.’ When you look at the most successful people in the world, you will see they prioritize professional development, reading and self-care on their calendars. These are people who are not afraid to block daily time for professional development (like reading – a ritual of nearly every high-powered CEO) or personal development (like yoga, therapy, or just a walk to clear their minds). And, they know they aren’t ‘stealing time’ from their jobs. These are people who are results-oriented, not clock watchers. They know that a break to re-energize and feed their minds will help them power through and produce the rest of the day.

Master meeting management

I’ve got plenty of experience working in cultures where meetings run the people vs. people running meetings.

To truly control your calendar, you have to learn how to effectively manage a meeting. My biggest piece of advice in doing this is to set the meeting yourself (don’t let people schedule time for you). There is usually a certain amount of professional courtesy afforded for the person who set the meeting. But, that’s not the real reason I encourage setting the meeting. The real reason is taking advantage of adjacent appointments.

When you schedule a meeting with your colleagues in Outlook, you can click on the schedule tab and see when people are available. You can also see blocks of time when people aren’t available. Those blocks of time are gold mines because you can book your meeting just before an adjacent appointment on someone’s calendar.

For example, let’s say Bob cannot stay on track in a meeting (we all know a Bob, don’t we?). He talks about everything but the topic on the table. Bob is a nice guy, but he is a problem. You need Bob to be focused; you need him to focus on the meeting topic; and you need him to not slow the meeting down.

When you send the meeting appointment (because you don’t let other people put things on your calendar), you look at everyone’s schedules. You notice Bob is free from 1-2pm, but he has a meeting scheduled at 2pm. You also notice he has a big chunk of free time from 9 to 11am. What time should you choose for your hour-long meeting?

Of course, you want to choose the 1-2pm time slot. Why? Because Bob has somewhere to be at 2pm. He will most likely be cognizant of that and will be more willing to stay focused to ensure he gets to talk about things that are important to him during your meeting. He simply doesn’t have hours to sit around, get off track and hijack your meeting.

A little sneaky, but it works!

Arrange your day based on your peaks and valleys

This is another thing people who are results-oriented understand. We aren’t all at our best from 9 to 5. Some of us are really strong early in the morning; some hit our stride after lunch; and some peak after work hours. You need to understand when you are at your best.

When are you the chattiest and most collaborative? That’s when you want to schedule appointments and meetings. When do you feel the most creative? That’s when you should block time for writing, designing, brainstorming, etc.

For me, I like to ease into my day. I’m not someone who jumps out of bed with a lot of energy. It doesn’t matter if I wake up at 5am or 10am, I need to ease in. So, I wake up early and ease in with quiet time, intention setting, reading, watching the news and (of course) coffee. I make sure I start my workday in a way that sets me up for success.

If you have a job that requires you to keep traditional office hours, don’t be afraid to talk with your supervisor about your peak and valley times. More and more offices are offering flex time to accommodate for long commutes and work/life balance.

There you have it – a bunch of tips and tricks I’ve learned to keep me on track. I am always looking for ways to hack my life and get more time to give the best of me to my top priorities. I’ve read a lot of great books on the subject. I’ll share my current favorites with you here:

Organize Tomorrow Today – This is, by far, my favorite. It is so much more than time management, it is therapy for the type-A personality.

The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich – This one really challenged me to think differently about how I get things done.

The 5 Second Rule – An easy read that will help you learn to trust your instincts and know when to push yourself.