5 Tips To Help You Manage Your Online Calendar

Managing your schedule on an online calendar? Here are my top time-blocking tips. I use, and recommend, Google Calendar but most have roughly the same options as detailed below.

1. Digital Divisions: Use your online calendar to create dedicated time blocks for tasks and appointments. First put in non-negotiable commitments and appointments e.g. school run, dentist appointments, non-flexible business hours or tasks. After this move onto the essential but flexible components of your business/life e.g exercise. marketing, accounting. Thirdly move onto the least time bound issues e.g. organising filing system or future planning. Remember to schedule breaks!

2. Color Code: Assign different colors to various tasks or clients for quick visual organization. This will help you see at a glance where your time is most spent and where there could be adjustments made. If you feel like you are always only spending time on the non-negotiables and can’t make time for other tasks it may be time to think about restructuring or outsourcing.

3. Set Reminders: Enable notifications to stay on track with your time blocks or appointments. This allows you to fully focus on one thing at at time, knowing that you will receive a reminder about moving onto the next thing. Most online calendars allow for integration with other apps, phone, browser etc so these can customised in the way that will help you best.

4. Flexibility Matters: Adjust your online calendar as needed, but maintain a structured framework. Plans and priorities change so be prepared to readjust your calendar to make it work best for you. If you find you don’t need the full amount of time you allocated for a task, re-allocate to something else.

5. Sync and Share: Sync your online calendar across devices and share it with others for seamless coordination. Online calendars often allow for separate calendars to be combined into one. So you could have a personal calendar plus a work calendar and you only share the work aspect (or vice versa) with someone else.