When it comes to diary management I am sure your ultimate goal is to use your time as effectively as you possibly can, am I right?  Just remember, by being organised and structured in your approach, whether you are using Outlook or Google Calendar, you will achieve so much more.

Before we dive into some my favourite ways to manage diaries, it is important to be clear with yourself and communicate to those who are responsible for managing your diary some of your personal preferences:-

• When you are happy to start meetings i.e. 7am for breakfast or do you prefer evening drinks instead?
• Are you happy to accommodate an early start with a late meeting at the end of the day?  Or do you prefer one or the other? 
• How many lunch meetings per week?
• Do you prefer to keep Friday afternoons free?

I am sure there are more points that you can add to the above, these are just to give you an idea.  The more you can communicate your personal preferences the easier it is for someone to take control of your diary management and meet your expectations.  It will also reduce the likelihood of having to reschedule meetings, which we all know only gives the impression of being disorganised!

Now let’s move onto ways to add clarity and structure to your diary management.

All day event

By selecting ‘all day event’ the entry will appear across the top of your calendar on the chosen day or can be extended to cover as many days as you choose.  Schedule bank holidays, school holidays and birthdays or special occasions as all day events.

I like to use this feature to keep track of meetings that my boss does not necessarily need to attend, although they do need to know the meeting is scheduled to take place.  By adding them as an ‘all day event’ they have easy access to see for themselves any meetings that have been confirmed without needing to ask ‘have you organised X meeting?  It’s a great communication tool and gives all the background details including who/where/when/what etc. 

Colour code

Simply select a different colour depending on the type of meetings you are scheduling i.e. internal, client, business development, potential candidate, telephone calls, courtesy and off-site or external meetings.  All parties involved will naturally become more familiar with the chosen colour codes over time.

Attach confirmation

This is a great time saver I love it, as everyone involved can access the attachments within the calendar entry for themselves – nice and easy!  Simply copy (Ctrl+C) and paste (Ctrl+V)  from your sent items the confirmation emails which include all the relevant details of the meeting.  Again, this will eliminate questions back to you as all the information is easily accessible.

Schedule travel time

By scheduling ‘travel time’ into your diary you will always know where you are supposed to be and how you are going to get there.  If your meeting is taking place thirty minutes away from the office, allow for this travelling time by scheduling it into your diary.  Similarly if flights or trains have been booked, all the timing and supporting confirmations can be added directly to the calendar entry.   

Finally, be careful not to over load your calendar by cramming every day with back to back meetings, you do need to factor in time to focus on your workload too.  If you have read my post about ‘6 simple ways to get organised’ you will know that I am fan of scheduling chunks of time to focus on specific tasks on your to-do-list – be realistic with time!  Try online systems like Evernote or ToDo-Pro for keeping track of all those other tasks and/or projects on your to-do-list.

I do hope you have learned from the above and as always, if you have any additional ways that you like to add structure and clarity to your diary, then please do share them with me via the comments box below, or drop me an email or better still lift the phone, I would love to hear from you.  If you are finding my tips useful and would like to receive my posts directly into your inbox then please do sign up to receive them automatically.  

In the meantime, I hope you have a productive week and I will be back next time with my tips for getting your paper based filing system organised!