Use your calendar to manage your priorities

In this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast, Chip and Gini discuss the importance of using your calendar to set, manage, and achieve your priorities.

The most scarce resource in any agency is the owner’s time. How you spend it is one of the best indicators of your likely success.

View the transcript

Chip Griffin 

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin,

Gini Dietrich 

and I’m Gini Dietrich.

Chip Griffin 

And we’re happy that we’ve gotten some time on your calendar today because we know your calendar is important. And that’s what we’re going to talk about, right after this. You know, as my intros go, that one was not too bad. That one was not too far off.

Gini Dietrich 

If you say so.

Chip Griffin 

Wow. So that’s how we’re gonna go here today, I guess?

Gini Dietrich 

Isn’t that how we go every week?

Chip Griffin 

I suppose so. But I can hope I can dream, Jimmy that one day with deep respect,

Gini Dietrich 

never going to happen. Never gonna happen. Never.

Chip Griffin 

Okay, well, it is what it is. But we will not waste any more of our listeners time because we are talking about your calendar today. Because your calendar is something that really helps to control your agency’s success. And not necessarily in the way that you may think. And there’s more that you can do about it proactively than perhaps you’re even thinking about today.

Gini Dietrich 

Yeah, I’m a big, big, big, big, big, big, big fan of blocking time on your calendar and using your calendar to your advantage. I am not a fan of other people dictating the calendar. And I have had in, in my agency’s life, I’ve had three assistants. And every one of them has said, Can I please control your calendar? Like No, you cannot control my calendar. Because the second I and I have tried, I’ve tried but the second I give up control to somebody else. Things slip in or things get moved. And things that are important to me things like deep work or strategic planning or working out, I put that on my calendar, like those kinds of things get moved, because the assistant will be like, Oh, well, she can do that later. And they’ll move it for a client and then all of a sudden that stuff that you actually need to do doesn’t get done because your your your calendars full of meetings.

Chip Griffin 

Right. Yeah, I mean, I have had similar challenges with assistants over the years, I’ve, I think I’ve said on the podcast before I used to be Murphy Brown with assistants, I would just you know cycle through them. There was a clear mismatch between what I was looking for and what I actually hired. So it was odd me. But I did have one assistant who was very good and and did a tremendous job at, you know, making sure that I was not in three different cities at once. Because yes, there’s one point when she was my assistant that I did a little bit of my own scheduling. And I had managed to put myself to be in three different cities on the exact same day

Gini Dietrich 

and the exact same time.

Chip Griffin 

Yeah,