Running a business or any type of organisation means that you are responsible for hundreds of different tasks, an endless barrage of meetings, and professional commitments that you simply can’t risk missing. With so much on your plate, you need to create highly optimised business schedules to ensure everything is done properly and on time.
If you’re wondering whether you are scheduling your organisation’s calendar in the best way possible, you’re at the right place. Here are some points that you can use to analyse your schedule for better work efficiency.
Prioritise to Perfection
Prioritising your organisational tasks and meetings based on how important and time-sensitive they are is a crucial part of running a business. You can’t simply do what comes first and then second; this would be a recipe for disaster!
There will be certain commitments or documents that require urgent attention, while others can be delayed for weeks without causing any issues. Therefore, it is best to start your week by prioritising tasks based on the four categories mentioned below. You can then delegate them effectively to your staff for smooth business running.
- Urgent and Important
- Important but Not Urgent
- Urgent but Not Important
- Neither Urgent Nor Important
Colour Code the Meetings
Have you been scheduling meetings properly but for some reason, it is not turning out to be as efficient as you thought? It could be because all of the entries in your calendar are getting jumbled up!
An easy and simple solution to this problem is colour-coding your calendar for different types of meetings. When you colour code, your calendar becomes much more practical. It offers a quick view of your upcoming commitments and makes it significantly easier to review, rearrange and follow up on your meetings. Colour coding also allows you to separate your meetings from other entries on the calendar, like important event days, holidays, and deadlines.
Here are some categories of meetings that you can assign different colours to:
- Type of meeting (business, health, personal, etc.)
- On-site or Off-site
- Recurring meetings
- Internal meeting or external
- Different priority levels
Buffer Time is Essential
Using a scheduling calendar software you can ensure the smooth working of your organisation is an excellent idea. But, you also need to be realistic with how you plan out each module in the calendar.
Ensuring you schedule an appropriate amount of time for each meeting, call, and other duties is important. Perhaps even more important is setting aside some buffer time to allow your employees enough time to move between responsibilities.
Whenever possible, be sure to add an extra 10 minutes before and after each meeting. It offers your staff some leeway time in case a meeting runs late, or they need time to prepare before the next one. These extra minutes can also help prevent the feeling of ‘running from meeting to meeting’ and the exhaustion that it creates.
Connect Your Calendar on Your Phone
This is by far the best step you can take to ensure your organisation makes the best use of its scheduling calendar. Make sure all of the employees have the calendars connected to their phones.
It is human nature to forget or miss out on important scheduling under stressful situations. You might have just left a meeting that ran 20 minutes late, and suddenly you’ve forgotten what your next commitment is. You probably won’t have access to your phone in this situation, and you need to be able to view your calendar for a quick reminder. This is where the calendar connected to your phone comes in to save the day. You can easily go over it while making your way to the next commitment, and you won’t even need to enter with a flurry of apologies for being late!
