This is an article from Leslie Shreve that hit my inbox today.

Time for a Calendar Fix

Most professionals have busy calendars, booked with meetings, appointments, personal commitments, vacations and more and their calendars reflect the “busyness.”

It’s great that all of these commitments are noted on a single calendar – that’s what you want. However, over the years, I’ve worked with many clients whose calendars reflect appointments and events that aren’t 100% real, accurate or true, which can cost them in lost time, embarrassment, reputation, lateness, or missed appointments altogether.

Unfortunately, I saw such a calendar recently and it reminded me to share with you what I do with clients to help them avoid the scrapes, bruises and cuts caused by a defective calendar. Because once you fall into these potholes, it’s hard not to get beat up.

And by the way, the fixes are quick and easy, but the payoffs for your productivity are big and long-lasting.

1. Be thorough

One thing I notice is that people often add to their calendars in haste, adding just enough information on the calendar screen to create a placeholder. These appointments are often missing information about the people, places, events, locations or call details involved in these appointments.

It’s best to open up a “New” calendar record or appointment box so you can fill in all the details: name of person, name of event, location, call-in information or address if necessary. If you don’t include these details, then you could easily forget them or waste time looking up the details in an e-mail, wherever that might be. Most importantly, you’ll end up not trusting your calendar, because you’re used to its lack of detail.

You can’t afford to mistrust your calendar or spend time later looking for details when you could have noted them at the time you set up the appointment to begin with. So be thorough right from the start.

2. Be real

I also find that people are not making their calendar appointments reflect the true time committed, whether personal or professional in nature. I find a lot of appointments that say they’re a ½ hour when they’re really one or two hours.

If you’re not making your appointments reflect the actual length of time for each commitment, then you’re kidding yourself about how much free time you really have. You’ll get a skewed sense of time as you glance at your calendar to understand where your time is going or where you’ll be and then you may think you have more free time than you really do. This could lead to saying “yes” more often to requests from others who want some of your time and saying “yes” too many times can lead to over-commitment and overwhelm.

And actually, the reverse can happen too. I find people who aren’t taking off the appointments that have been cancelled or moved. This could create disappointment when you’ve turned down a meeting or an event because you didn’t see available time on your calendar when you needed it, all because you left an appointment there that should have been deleted or moved.

So be real about your calendar appointments. Make them reflect exactly how long you think each one will last and take off the ones that should disappear.

3. Be decisive

I find conflicts where two appointments share the same time slot on a given day. You can’t be in two places at once, so pick one. Sometimes, my clients will have two possible events or meetings they can go to, but because they haven’t chosen one, they’re both showing on the calendar.

Be decisive and make your calendar reflect where you’ll really be.

4. Be in charge

I also find conflicts and clutter because people can add to my clients’ calendars and invite them to meetings. When invited, they may or may not accept the meeting, but there it sits on their calendar.

If this happens to you, don’t let an invitation sit there without accepting or rejecting it right away because again, it will skew your sense of free time. Make a decision and keep your calendar accurate according to what you want to see there.

Other conflicts show because you may accept a meeting, but then you’ve also set up the same meeting on your own and now they’re both showing, side by side in the same time slot. And one appointment always shows more details than the other. When this happens, wipe off one of the appointments in favor of the other and combine the meeting details into the one you’re really going to keep. You don’t need both.

So be in charge of your own calendar and don’t let others (or yourself!) junk it up.

Happy Time Management Month!

Productivity expert and founder of Productive Day, Leslie Shreve, publishes Work Day Wonders to help highly motivated experts like you put their work day on cruise control at peak productivity to enjoy less stress, more progress and greater success. If you’re ready to be in the driver’s seat of your work day and leave your frustrations behind, subscribe now to get your FREE subscription. And as a BONUS, you’ll also get the 7 Power Steps to Peak Productivity, a 7-day e-mail mini-series of tips you can start using today!