Work Calendar Overhaul

Visualize this. It’s once again time to clean out the closet. You know, you start sorting through things and recognize that half of the clothes should really go. You’re not wearing them! They are simply taking up space that could be better utilized by things you actually still wear or want to buy new!

I know I’m not the only one, so I’ll call it out... we all have that piece or two that we could wear years ago, it no longer fits, but we are hanging on to the idea of shedding some pounds so that we can wear it again! 😂 Or maybe there’s a shirt hanging up that has slightly faded in color over time due to frequent washing. Could be an article or two with a busted seam, missing a button or with an out of place stitch ... the point I am making here is that there is almost always items we will find during every attempted closet cleanup that are no longer needed or useful. To address, we toss them out to make better room for the items we need to keep or any new things we plan to add.

Well... our work calendars are the same way. Every now and then we need to sort it out and give it a good cleanup. It’s how we take back ownership of our time! Is it time for you to do a work calendar overhaul? Here are five actionable steps you can take now to begin your clean up and reclaim ownership of your schedule!

(1) GET RID OF THE UNNECESSARY

I was producing a weekly progress report to a stakeholder group. It contained insightful data, but although insightful, was it really valuable use of my time? Let’s see... I noticed I had never received any feedback on this particular weekly emailed progress report. Daily, members from this stakeholder group would ask questions that I knew to be answered already had they simply read the email. Turns out they weren’t looking at it. They weren’t taking the time to truly dig into the data I was providing. To be frank, I had better things to do than spend so much time and effort into something nobody got anything out of. UNNECESSARY! Do you have weekly task that fall into this category... Things you are doing just because? If so, TOSS IT!

(2) CREATE BUFFER SPACES

If I allowed people to, they would show no consideration of my time or me as a person. My calendar would be filled with back to back meetings on the hour; not even allowing for a restroom break! To declutter your work calendar, a good strategy is to place a few 15 minute buffers in each work day that aren’t dedicated to anything.

(3) TRACK TIME

If you really want to spend your time better, you have to first figure out how you’re spending your time now. For two weeks track all of your calendar engagements; especially those recurring meetings. Make a list... Jot all of these activities down in a journal for reassessment at the end of the two week period. In the assessment ask yourself questions like “Why am I doing this, what is the purpose?”, “Does this still make sense?”, and “Are we accomplishing what we set out to do with this activity?”. You will be surprised at how many things you do that don’t bring true value! TOSS IT OUT! 😉

(4) IT’S OKAY TO SAY NO!

In some cases you can just say no (nicely) to adding a certain event to your calendar or task to your list. Or maybe, the activity is a good one, but shouldn’t be a high priority on your list. Can you delegate it to someone else so that you can focus on more high impact items or focused project time?

(5) CONSIDER THE TASK NOT THE RELATIONSHIP!

This one is so important. You must learn how to separate the decision of whether or not to decline an invite from the working relationship that you have with that inviter. Just because you say no to something doesn’t mean you don’t value that person. If the calendar request isn’t essential to your job, or won’t get you any closer to a personal or shared work goal/priority, LET IT GO!

Okay. You’ve been equipped with the “know-how”. There’s work to do! Get to cleaning guys! Your mind and body will thank you later. 🧹