Calendar Management; It’s About Time to Clear the Clutter

Meet deadlines. Avoid task overload. Maintain order. Calendar management keeps the operational system balanced and productive; with plenty of room for growth.

While there’s no freedom like owning a business, profitable ventures just won’t take off without challenges.

In this age of offshore work, effective scheduling has become a critical part of staying on top of your game.

As an entrepreneur, you can set your own rules and control your time. However, that power to decide comes with a responsibility to make sure you get the work done, on the dot as expected.

To spring into success in a timely manner, you need some calendar management magic.

Meet deadlines. Avoid task overload. Maintain order. Focus on high-value work.

You can accomplish all the above mentions by working with an effective calendar management system that runs beautifully productive for you.

Let’s make your calendar management a carefree experience with these time-control best practices, skills and tools.

What is Calendar Management?

So, what is a calendar management job description?

Calendar management refers to the process of scheduling and organizing meetings and other commitments to optimize your calendar. The goal is to maximize and understand what’s the best use of your time.

Functional calendar management applies some strong time and priority management.

There are a number of ways on how to go about your calendar management. Executive assistants use online planning tools to plan out an effectual calendar system which we will further discuss in this article.

How Do Executive Assistants Manage Calendars?

It’s no secret that managing the calendar of the most important people in the organization is pretty tough and demanding. They need to make every minute of their day count. Thus, staying on schedule is a MUST!

For the executive assistants, tasked to take on this hugely important role, here are some essential calendar management techniques and methods to master to successfully manage the complex calendar operation of your executives.

  • Calendar Management Tools

    Okay, a physical calendar diary might work too. But the tendency is, you might miss some important events as you go through a series of updates and changes.

    You need to be fast and cohesive when you’re working with someone with a packed to-do list. A notebook is portable nonetheless, but it’s not very practical.

    Ergo, a calendar software is a much better option. It is an application that you can use to visually organize schedules in the simplest manner. You can create and scribble notes, edit and share your timetable with whomever you need to in the quickest way possible; saving time with tons of convenience.

    In business language, with calendar management tools, you can streamline your company’s overall operation.

    The first step is to choose the right calendar management tool for you. In choosing, you have to understand the objective and know what calendar management features matter the most.

  • Priority Management

    Do you know what comes hand-in-hand with a calendar management tool?

    Priority management.

    Priority management is the process of weighing what tasks you should be working on first.

    For prioritizing you can use the Eisenhower Matrix, emphasizing the difference between “the urgent” and “the important” and dividing it into four segments:

    • Urgent and important
    • Important but not urgent
    • Urgent but not important
    • Neither urgent nor important

    When you master such skill of understanding priorities, you can adjust the time and resources towards an activity with a long-term impact for the company.

  • Task Batching

    If the inbox of your digital marketing assistant is piling up in a great mess, perhaps, some task batching can do good for your task management needs.

    Task batching is a productivity method that organizes assignments into groups based on the likeness of the tasks. The goal is to avoid switching between tasks which kills productivity.

    Instead of moving around projects, with task batching you can stream similar activities at once.

  • Time Blocking

    If you ever wonder what the greatest business minds like Bill Gates and Elon Musk have in common, aside from being billionaires? They both power through their busy schedule using time blocking.

    Time blocking is a time management method that involves scheduling your day in advance. You can do that by dividing your workday in a series of time blocks.

    The main objectives are to avoid tasks switching and reduce the time you spend contemplating what to work on by telling you exactly how your day should go about.

  • Time Boxing

    For starters, don’t confuse time boxing as time blocking because they’re actually not one and the same. They’re just so much alike that people tend to switch them up.

    One thing that separates time boxing from its close time management cousin, is that the former’s focus is on limiting the hours spent you spend working on a task before you even start working.

    By doing so, you get to have a time limit and avoid working until the due date.


What Are Calendar Management Skills?

People who neglect schedules are more prone to miss appointments or postpone events. In short, they’re the type who lives in an unorganized environment, and just moves on without a plan —that’s like the recipe for disaster.

Without putting effort in time management, you’re bound to lose many business opportunities.

Therefore, the best way to establish a competent calendar management is through learning some of these basic calendar skillful habits.

  • Learn to Consolidate: Avoid double bookings, and learn to coordinate events and deadlines
  • Create a Routine: Set blocks of time for a specific activity
  • Learn to Optimize Your Time: Determine what block of time should be used in each meeting
  • Document Preferences: To make the best use of your time, document your preferred meeting schedule.
  • Color Code Meetings: Keep things neat, and visually organize your timetable
  • Create Reminders: Don’t forget your important and urgent, by setting reminders

Calendar Management is an essential operation skill to build and improve output.

What Are Calendar Management Tools for Virtual Assistant?

Sure, you got your smartphone calendar apps to keep you on schedule. But we’re talking about a possible business world domination here, and your little gadget just won’t cut it.

Let’s keep things serious and professional, shall we? Achieve better communication and control and avoid overcommitments, with these popular calendar online collaboration tools of today.

  • Google Calendar

    Google Calendar is arguably the most popular calendar tool out there. Almost everyone has accessed and used Google Calendar, embedding it into their smartphones.

    The application is integrated with Google Workspace and Gmail, offering a myriad of automated and customizable features such as:

    • Event Calendar
    • Address Book
    • Calendar Sync
    • Availability Management
    • Room Booking
    • Real-time Scheduling
    • Online Booking
    • Integrations

    What makes Google Calendar stand out is its ability to create multiple calendars using one app. Plus, it’s completely free to use for all androids!

  • Outlook Calendar

    For Microsoft users, Outlook Calendar is the perfect management tool for you, syncing directly with Microsoft contacts, emails and other key features which makes it easier for sharing and integration.

    Anyhow, the clear advantage of using Outlook Calendar is the ability to manage and send a calendar to everyone in the team through email. It also allows anyone to subscribe to another calendar and receive them in real time.

    Some of the key features of this amazing calendar software are as follows.

    • Calendar Invites
    • Integration
    • Shared Calendar
    • Meeting Insights
    • Calendar Synching
    • Time Zone Tool

    Outlook calendar has a free version and a paid plan version, with more available features at $5.99 a month.

  • Apple Calendar

    The best calendar software for Mac and iOS users is the Apple Calendar. All Apple devices known to mankind can easily access and use this management software from anywhere.

    What we love about the Apple Calendar is its power to retrieve events from other calendar applications, so you can have all your schedules in one place. On top of that, you can integrate this tool with their virtual assistant “Siri.” That’s quite a major plus if you’re constantly running on schedule.

    Here are some of the features you can access in your Apple Calendar.

    • Multiple accounts in one calendar
    • Color Code
    • Send Invites
    • Integration with Google
    • Integration with Siri
    • Set travel time to an event location

    Apple Calendar is free to all Apple devices and is also available in a desktop version.

Final Thoughts

A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life — or in this case, the price of raising a startup into a powerful enterprise.

A well-managed timetable keeps the operational system balanced and productive; with plenty of room for the completion of other tasks.

If one folds and drudges, the other will most likely too. So, think smart and adhere to a calendar management system.

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