This week’s question is all about using your calendar and how and why your calendar is your number one productivity tool

 

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Script

Episode 109

Hello and welcome to episode 109 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, GTD, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein and I am your host for this show.

Before we get to the question, I’d like to let you know that if you are in the Apple ecosystem, I am currently running a special series of videos on my YouTube channel showing how to get the most out of Apple’s productivity apps as well as iCloud. 

And if you want to learn how to build your very own productivity system using only Apple’s suite of apps, then I have updated my Create Your Own Apple Productivity System course which will show you how to build a system designed for you and the unique way in which you work. 

Details of all these are in the show notes.

Okay, it’s now time for me to hand you over to the mystery podcast voice for this week’s question.

This weeks question comes from Tiago. Tiago asks: Hi Carl, I work on customer service and sometimes is difficult to lead with interruptions and emergencies from clients, colleagues and my boss. Do you have some tips for using my calendar appropriately to do my tasks and projects to get more work done?

Thank you, Tiago for your question. Now, this is something I believe strongly about - that is your most important productivity tool is not your to-do list, notes app or any other app. It’s the plain simple calendar. That’s because your calendar is the one app that tells you the truth about how much time you have each day. Your to-do list does not do that. Your to-do list is a list of tasks you need to complete. 

More often than not, most people overestimate what they are capable of each day and find they have to reschedule tasks every day. The irony is when they do that a lot of people give up with to-do lists believing it’s the to-do lists fault not realising it is they who put tasks into a to-do list and a simple fix for constantly having to reschedule tasks is to not put so many tasks into the list in the first place. Basically get realistic. 

Okay, so let's get back to the calendar. Why is it the most powerful productivity tool for you?

Well, firstly it shows you only the time you have available each day. Those precious 24 hours. You cannot change that and you cannot change the need for sleep, food and water. Those are the non-negotiables of life. You can try and squeeze time out of your sleep and eating time if you want, but you would only be damaging your health and well-being and it would unlikely lead to any improvement in the amount of quality of work you get done anyway. 

Okay, so how do you use your calendar to maximise your productivity?

First up begin with the weekly review. This is where you can take a long-view of your calendar and see what time you have available in the week. Let’s say, for example, you have a training day on Wednesday and on Friday you are out of the office on a site visit. This means you have lost two ‘normal’ working days. So those two days are scheduled off and you would be wise not to add anything extra in those days. 

This leaves you with three normal office workdays. Now, you may have a number of meetings to attend on some of those days, a conference call or two and various other non-negotiables. These all get put on your calendar first. They are, after all, non-negotiable. 

Once you have all your non-negotiables on your calendar you can see how much time you have left.