Control Your Calendar. Or It Will Control You.

Leaders who don’t have control of their calendars will constantly feel out of control. Life will seem frantic and harried, yet it will be difficult to pinpoint what they are actually getting done. You will watch this person bounce around from one thing to another, always busy, yet often late and missing really important priorities. 

I’m not the king of time management, but I do live and die by my calendar. Everything that is important in my life goes on my calendar. Here are ten principles that help me:

1. Put priority items on your calendar first. You must put the most important things (such as time with your spouse and kids, vacation, strategic planning, and vision time) on the calendar first. Otherwise you’ll never find time for those priorities. Load these things up months in advance. When we had littles, I'd put a monthly "date night" on my calendar with the girls, or "guy time" with the boys. By having it on my schedule, I wouldn't get half way into a year and realize the people most important to me weren't showing up on my calendar.  

2. Stack your meetings. If it’s within your control, try to schedule all your meetings on the same day or two each week. Stacking your meetings will keep you from getting bitter about meetings ruling your life, and it will leave you with a couple of days where your schedule is open to get tasks completed.

3. Practice calendar blocking. Block your calendar for certain functions or people that you need to make time for, but you know could get out of control if you let it. For example, if you lead a church and know there will always be people in the congregation wanting time with you, block one afternoon each week for these meetings. You may only have three "slots" available each week, but that's okay. It keeps you from allowing other people's emergencies from taking you away from what you have determined to be priority. You, or your assistant, can reply, "yes, I'm booked up for the next three weeks but I'd be glad to meet with you after that." This doesn't mean you don't have any time on your calendar for the next three weeks. But you've decided in advance that these types of meetings only get a certain block of time on your calendar.

4. Calendar your projects. You walk out of a meeting and were just handed a project. You know it's going to take 6-8 hours. Pull out your computer or phone and add the project to your calendar. This goes hand-in-hand with calendar blocking. If you don't block time for projects, then you will end up doing these a) during your personal or family time, or b) rushing and not giving the project your best. 

5. Schedule your rest. If you don’t plan for rest and renewal, it won’t happen. It's absolutely okay to block your calendar for rest, recalibration and decompression. Look ahead to busy and intense seasons, and decide in advance that you will need a few days to recover on the other side. Don't feel guilty about it when others are not taking the time away. You aren't responsible for their health, you are only responsible for your own.

6. Manage your travel schedule. I think it’s important for anyone who travels regularly to find the right amount that balances family, business, and personal health. Put together a team that keeps this in check (hint: it should include your spouse and boss). 

7. Go home before the work is done. The work is never finished. Just go home! 

8. Leave room for people. It is easy to fill up your calendar and not leave room for the people who might cross your path who need you to love on them, speak into them, or listen to them. If my calendar is booked solid, I don’t have the flexibility when someone drops by my office or a crisis comes up that needs attention.

9. Use tools to manage your calendar. I use Calendly to help manage my calendar. As long as I block my calendar appropriately, then Calendly knows what times I have available. I can just send someone the link and say, "pick a time that is convenient for you." It saves all the time suck from going back and forth to try to find a time that works. They pick a time, automatically get a zoom link (if appropriate), and it pops up on my calendar during a time I'm okay taking new appointments. 

10. Be flexible! Once you have priority people, projects and tasks on your calendar -- it is perfectly okay to move them around. Let's say you have a two-hour block on your calendar for a report you need to write. Something comes up last minute that is important and urgent. That's okay. Rather than overwrite or delete the important two-hour project block, just move it to a future date. Give yourself some flexibility without missing important priorities. 

John Maxwell summed up calendar management this way:

“The key to becoming a more efficient leader isn’t checking off all the items on your to-do list each day. It’s in forming the habit of prioritizing your time so that you are accomplishing your most important goals in an efficient manner.”

I know some of you have some of you have some epic calendaring skills. What would you add to my list?