Time Management or Shall We Say Time Control

How do you manage your calendar and your life?  This problem is not only common for entrepreneurs and business owners, but anyone who works, has a family, and has goals to pursue.  THAT IS EVERYONE!
I really mean it when I ask, how do you manage your calendar?  I would love to know what each person does that could actually help others.  I do not think every option will work for everyone but it is good to know how some people have managed to never miss an appointment or event etc.
I found an easy to read article that laid out some great tips  of which I was already utilizing as well I will also share a few of my own.
“5 tips for Effective Schedule Management” by UnBusy Entrepreneur
Tip #1– Use Google Calendar- I can speak from experience that this is a powerful tool not only for yourself but for sharing purposes.  As a CRM consultant, I am a huge proponent of sharing your internal calendar in your CRM system so all things are in one place.  Sometimes that just doesn’t work properly and this can be viable alternative.  This also helps to share calendars with people outside of your internal office.
Tip #2– Use an APP to help.  The article speaks about an application called Sunrise.  This application links your Google calendar, iCloud and exchange emails to your social media accounts putting all events into just one place. What I like about this is the extra social media links.  If you accept an invite for a facebook event, it will put that event in your calendar for you.
An app I like to use is called CalPrint.  For those of you who feel more secure with a hard copy of your calendar… once all your appointments are linked to your phone calendar or icalendar, you can then use this app to pull them into one document to print either by day, week or month.  You can print wirelessly or send yourself a PDF to print elsewhere. You could also use this to send to others who need to know your schedule.
Tip #3– Use a virtual assistant or personal assistant to organize scheduling.  This option will not necessarily help to get to your appointments on time or at all.  It will, however, give you a little free time by delegating parts of the scheduling process to the assistant.  It could be confirming, scheduling, or even just the input into the electronic calendar of your choice (CRM).
Tip #4- Only offer two time slots.  This is a great suggestion to streamline the scheduling process and keep on top of your appointments. It is also easy for the person on the other end as they have less choices to worry about.
Tip #5– Consolidate schedules. Consolidating schedules is the most important thing on effective time management. Even if you have entered events on Google calendar, set-up Sunrise and hired a Virtual Assistant, if you are not consolidating your calendar into one central location, then all efforts will just go to waste. Make sure that your always updating your calendar. Send notifications 10 or 15 minutes prior to the said event for you to be ready. And always check if there are overlapping events.  Most CRM systems will synch into one of the programs so even that can help with consolidation.
My last tip is more of a story. Tip #6– Make sure your significant other is shared in on your calendar for the relevant appointments. So I work full time, my husband works full time, and we have a 7 year old with school, cub scouts, and sports.  It is imperative that we are in sync with our schedules.  Last year we missed a few important things that I am embarrassed to share…but I will.  During the first few months of the school year, I missed a half day (I needed to pick up my son and I wasn’t there) and I missed a cub scout meeting of which my son was sitting there waiting for me.  Now he was supervised and in no danger while I was called and was there within 15 minutes of the call.  But the point is, I didn’t have these programmed into my schedule and I missed them.  I got busy and distracted and nothing reminded me to get there.  These among a few other discrepancies in our home schedules caused us to implement a new process.  I create an outlook invite for all events.  These then are synched into my phone and always have a 15 minute reminder.  So if I am at my desk, outlook will remind me and if not my phone will.  I also print with CalPrint so I can look it over on a daily basis and review what I have going on.  Lastly I send an invite to my husband if he has to take part in the event at all.  I invite him to family birthday parties, I invite him to pick up our son if I have a conflict and can’t that day, I invite him to attend school or other meetings with me.  This way it is not only in my calendar but in his.
Please share if you have any tips to help other busy people keep ahead of their calendars.
written by Kari-Ann Ryan, WAC Solution Partners, Midwest