Productivity – Calendar Management
Productivity – Calendar Management
Here is the transcript of the third podcast episode with Oliver. Enjoy!
Oliver
It’s one of the most talked about topics that they are people talk about time management people talk about, there is no time management, because you cannot manage your time, people are talking about how to structure your day and stuff like this. So there’s a ton of information out there. And I’m really lucky to record a bit view, and then talk about all the good things that you can do with a good calendar management, because my system that I have, the calendar is on the top hierarchy. So if the most important things for me or two for me my productivity system, but it also depends on some other stuff. So I’m really glad that we can start here. And yeah, so we start with the problems. Christian.
Christine
Yes, yeah, we can start with that one question upfront, because there’s still some people obviously, who don’t use digital calendars, maybe. And I have to say until three, maybe more, four or five years ago, I refuse to use digital calendars. Because I like paper too much. Even though I also have a Kindle to read books, and I like books a lot. But then I discovered all the benefits of that. I really, really liked the calendar that I had in my hand and write something inside because I also thought it was quicker than opening and put something in. But then I switched and I forced myself to use it. And I would never would like to change it again, because also for reminders and stuff like this. But I guess we are focusing more on the digital calendar side rather than the written in paper. Yes.
Oliver
So my system that I use you can use for your digital calendar, but also for your paperwork, calendar. But I would highly recommend to use a digital candle now because you have many options that you don’t have when you only work with paper based. And Mike just mentioned tools like Calendly, which obviously helps you a lot. But yeah, to be honest, I had a paper based calendar as well. In Germany, they’re really big. The name was la high, which means Yeah. And I was really happy with it. But to be honest, when you’re using a digital calendar, and I hand over to the first tip, only use one calendar is the most important, you have to have one calendar that you look at and you know exactly what you have to or when you have to be where in the day and you don’t have or if you have different calendars, one digital for work one digital for private, and you have like a paper based calendar, then you just getting distracted, lost. And you it’s really hard.
Christine
Yes, and I have I have to say also for this because some people say Oh, but for my private I use Gmail and that did work I need to use Outlook and the other one I need to use that. There are then apps or even within those calendars, the options to merge or to at least mirror things and automatically and sync them. So you have them all in one view. So this would be just one thing to save. If you have to have different kinds of tools and calendars. You can usually merge them and manage them also fun one place.
Oliver
Yes. Thank you. So this, you, you guys my first tip? Oh, in short, no, no, it’s good, right? So first only use one calendar. And if you use more than one calendar, match them or merge them into one calendar so you can completely see on one little look where you’re, you’re in the day where you are in the week. So this will be the first tip, you need one instrument that shows you exactly the time, which is your calendar, and only one.
Christine
Yes. And you mentioned that you also want to maybe, and that goes leads into the tips, probably problems that people might have. And that might come with calendar management.
Oliver
Oh, yeah, we can if you want to, we can collect some. So I thought the first one, I don’t have time. So like people only think, Okay, I have 24 hours a day, but I don’t have time. Yes. And the thing is, if I’m looking at the calendars, right, this is the first thing I do. Normally, when I start my conducting I just applicants from your calendar. And normally, when I see people talking about they don’t have time, and I look at the calendar, it’s an almost empty calendar. Which it’s really crazy, right? If you’re thinking about normally, you would expect them out completely structured, they don’t have time. But normally the people that work for me and say I don’t have time. If I’m looking at the candidate every night, maybe two or three odds meetings, something, the red is blank. And one thing that I really I was figuring out is that if you have things on your calendar, it’s like a black hole for your time, because you don’t know what to put in. So you start to put things in that maybe are not as important as they should be. Yeah, what do you think?
Christine
I think that is right. And I always say, we all have all the time in the world for everything that we want, we just need to change our priorities. Because this is not for having an empty calendar. This might be if you even have a full calendar. And I don’t have time for that. You have time for what you want. And just have to sometimes take out other things and change your priorities. But it’s not about I don’t have time, it’s about okay, I prioritize something else. And this could be something good. So for example, I could say, I don’t have time to do the podcast, recording. Yeah. Because I prioritize doing a yoga session instead and taking care of myself. It’s okay. It’s not the work is more important than the well being or anything. It’s about balancing it and looking at different things. But we we fill our hours, like you just said with things. The question is, are these the things that move us forward? business wise, if we’re talking about startups now and the business calendar, and the working hours, let’s say all these things that are not moving us forward? Neither in the business world nor private, personal development or physical well being or mental well being or anything? And why are we doing those then, and worth replacing them? Sometimes my boyfriend always says, sometimes it also is enough to exist. And I agree. So just do nothing, and have these empty spaces, but then make sure you don’t fill them with other stuff. But anyway, this is just a bit of a few phrases thrown in from me, one of the things that I hopefully nobody that will listen to this episode will say anymore is I don’t have time for time management. Right? This is like one of the things don’t if people start to, to skip planning sessions to skip your calendar planning or your time management. It’s like, in my opinion of or from my point of view, one of the greatest mistakes that you can do. Take your time for timing.
Christine
Yes, that is true planning is always I don’t know what the same in how many hours it is, but it says something like okay, 10 hours of planning can save a few 100 hours of work in the end as well.
Oliver
Yeah, rolling that people start to push as much stuff inside the calendar as they can. So The first one was, don’t add anything on your calendar. And the second column that I’m that, in my opinion is out there is way too much stuff in your calendar. Or people think, wow, I can optimize. I don’t know my feet, I don’t have to eat anymore. So they just structuring the calendar like crazy, all the dues, all meetings, and they start to getting really nervous, and they starting to get really reactive about their time management because yeah, they just being in all these sizes, they are acting busy and not smart. They’re just accepting everything which is coming in. Yeah, they try to optimize everything which is coming in, and they end up the day, because they’re really frustrated. Because they, if you would just go to line and say, okay, they are really productive, because they are just doing stuff. But from their point of view, because there’s so much inside the calendar, but which obviously they cannot reach the people that spent because they think oh, I’m not productive. Because this was on my calendar. I didn’t made it. XYZ. This my opinion, the next great mistake.
Christine
Sometimes. Yeah, it’s I think for people who also like me, sometimes if you are a high achiever person, you always want to do something. And I really remember when I was a few years back, before I learned to do it in a different way. Queen of multitasking, and always, even you know what cleaning the bathroom, I have to listen to an online course. Because for me otherwise, it would be maybe a waste of time, or whilst watching a movie, I did something else as well, or something like that. And yeah, that means that there’s too many things, maybe at once and information as well at once. And that’s the same with calendar management, I assume, yeah. People don’t have anything in and then just fill them with stuff that might not be as relevant or is too much in there. Yes.
Oliver
Let’s hand to the next problem and merge it with the next tip. Tip number two, for the quote, you cannot manage your time, you only can manage your energy or priorities. Like when I’m talking to people about time management, this is normally the first thing that they say. So why are you talking about time management, you cannot manage your time, right, you can only manage your energy. And normally I say to the to these people, I’m just talking, I say, year, I agree that you’re everybody has just 24 hours, and that it’s better to manage your priorities or your energy, but in my opinion, you cannot separate it. In my opinion, the best time management is when you manage your priority. So we talked about this the last time right? In task management, if you have a really clear goal, what to achieve. And you have really clear tasks that lead you to the goals. And then you have your time management, which allows you to work is specific hours a week on this kind of task. This is when you manage your priorities and your time management together. And the second thing that I really would say is manage your or merge your time and energy. Everybody, you, me, everybody who’s listening, everybody, our bodies work differently, right? First of all, you need really high energy level if you want to achieve more. So don’t skip sports or movements in general. Good nutrition and sleep. Right on the on the long term. And then the short term is know when you’re productive. know, when you have your prime time, your high performance, productivity, right. But my case, normally it’s between seven and 1130. And now, this is like my second tip is you can merge it if you because the problem or the mistake in my opinion that people do is they’re looking at the calendar, the eight working hours or maybe if they understand 12 working hours and they structure it right and think okay, what’s what are my priorities? Okay, I did have to do this this. So they’re just putting time slots in the calendar about time boxing, which is the fifth. So they’re just boxing the time all over again. But they won’t achieve and why is that? Because during the day we have high performance states and low performance states we have high energy level, low energy level and managing your time and your energy management. In the same way it means understand when you are really productive. And when you need a break, and then merge it, for example, in my case, my high performance date is between permanent 1130. And after lunch, I’m really falling into like your hole of low energy, which is between 3pm. And let’s say 5pm. So and then if you managing your time and managing your priorities in one way that you’re doing the tasks that leads to your goals in your prime time, and other tasks that have to be done, right. For example, editing this podcast episode, you doing in your low energy, time. And the place where everything goes is the calendar. This is when you get maximum maximizing and multiplying your your productivity ex time, right? Yeah. So second tip, merging your energy and time. And don’t think about, I only can manage my time priorities or energy management, I think, or my system, you can merge everything. So you have like the biggest productivity.
Christine
Yeah, I agree in this fantastic. A lot of times, we can’t do that for external circumstances. But if you are a startup, a lot of times, it’s up to you how you schedule your calendar, what would be maybe useful is to talk a second about how do I know when my energy levels are high or low? I mean, one is obvious. If you get sleepy and you’re super slow and demotivated, it’s probably when your energy levels are low. And if you feel low, then they are high. But maybe do you have any other indicators of be finding out actually, what your when you annually, energy levels are high or low during the day, and then probably track that over time to make sure it’s not just because you didn’t have enough sleep. But it’s seems to be a pattern there.
Oliver
So I would recommend to just make notes. So have a note on your desk for one week. And just typing in, okay, I’m feeling feeling great. And I’m coming into the flow, right? So I can work on creative stuff. Or, in my case, one really good indicators, if I’m just starting to do creative work or deep work, and then start to procrastinating. This is normally because I don’t want this at the time, but I’m just trying to force myself. And then I’m just getting the cygnets. Hey, your energy level isn’t for working on this important task. So it’s better to just doing routine tasks, things that have to be done more stuff. And so my in my case, I would recommend you to just have, how do you call it tolerable diary.
Diary, yes, doing a diary and tuning in. Okay, now, I was in the flow, I was really, really focused, and then just write it or seven, seven days, and then you’re drawing a line. Now you see, okay, my prime time is in the evening, my prime time is in the morning. And being completely honest to yourself. It’s not good or bad. If you can pocket yourself in the morning or in the evening. No worries, everybody’s different. But your job is to find out when I should actually do that as well.
Christine
But I do kind of know I’m not a morning person, I think because I don’t like to get up early. But I do know that I’m super productive in the morning. So I sometimes force myself and I guess if you get into the rhythm, then it gets easier, at least for me. But they are finding that out. Perfect. Okay, what else do we have on the agenda?
Oliver
Oh, yeah, now you will be amazed because the next thing changed my life. Now that we know when our energy levels high or low, right. And now that we just use one calendar, the first tips, we can start to think about the perfect week, which is the most powerful tool in time management. That obviously it’s we start to or the problem that people have when they talk about calendar and time management is that they’re just working really reactive. Right? So in my case, and if you’re a startup person, maybe let’s talk about your startup person, you’re the head of sales, and you have different kinds of jobs right to you have to call you have to think about new ideas to make sense process whatever And so there’s like different things, right? If you cannot work on your, on your process, if you have caused all the time, if you’re just working on your process, but you don’t have chords, obviously, it will not work as well. So the thing that in the consulting business I see is people coming to me, like successful con that say I cannot. My whole my whole week is completely defragmented fragmented. So of course, in the morning, then called Sunday evening, between it if half an hour for working, but they cannot focus stuff like this, that we start to get really reactive, all the things from outside would come to our calendar, we get appointments, meetings, calls, stuff like this, but we won’t find time for deep work. So my tip would be just thinking about, and this is like something that you should type take picture, save time, because it will save you a ton of time. Think about how would your perfect week look like? Think about all the things you have to do about your roles about your most important task, and then finding yourself in a perfect week, it should not be your you’re really right. It’s just for you to have a structure. So for example, in my case, I have in the mornings, I have deep work, no calls. So I would not accept calls in the mornings. We hours completely restructured three people. In the evenings. I have my calls. On Fridays, I don’t have calls because I’m thinking about new business ideas. I have my admin time block, were just planning my week stuff like this. So I thought about how would be a perfect week that keep me productive. Right? And the thing is, why is it so important? Because if you don’t think about what should be important in my calendar, it was filled with important stuff from others, right? And if I thinking about okay, I don’t want to have colds in the morning because I want to focus. Then, if somebody asks you, hey, can we can we have the call tomorrow? You can say no, because you have an alternative in your head. If you don’t have it, and you don’t know your ideal week? Do it’s really hard to say no, right? It’s because you because your calendar obviously is free. So this idea of thinking about what is your perfect week? How should my perfect week look like to fulfill all my needs that I have in the business, private life is an amazing tool that I would recommend you and just to more details, I only recommend you to for being productive every day, if you can manage it perfect. If not, try to get as close to it as possible. But save yourself wee hours per day, deep work without calls without checking your mails. Just on one or two topics, this would rise your productivity completely through the roof. Right. So focus blocks is one of the most important parts of your perfect week.
Second, thinking about when do you want to have courts or not? Because courts will distract us. And here I can give you like an advanced tip used to like in my current calendar. I thought about okay, when do I want to have calls and then I just scheduled them directly in Calendly. So if you want to book a call with me, you will book it on Tuesday or Thursday in the evening. Because this is my are my call times so it’s easier for you to say no when somebody else has to choose the meeting for you read. So thinking about your focus blocks thinking about your meeting blocks and thinking about strategic reset blocks where you plan so planning focusing and yeah breaks would be my top advice is for your perfect week.
I work on my goals, stuff like this, it should not be so crazy, complicated. You can really, if you want to have it in a really easy way. Just say for example, Monday is my acquisition day. Tuesday is my no awkward stay like, but try to give yourself what do you need of being productive? What do you need? reaching your goal?
Christine
I did do that. Also, in the past, I do even have templates in my community for scheduling your weeks with the reoccurring tasks and stuff. And always recommended, but I never took it from the angle. Okay, but what’s your perfect week? What does it look like? Which should always be at the forefront of when you start that? So that’s really good, thank you.
Oliver
Yes, now what we’ll come to the craziest part, right? When I’m just talking about how can you like double, triple or 10x your productivity when you match your prime time with your perfect week. So in my prime time, I have my focus time, the focus time is only for working on my goals. Right? So the best time of my day, I will spend for working on my own goals, which is crazy effective if you just use it for for a few weeks. So this would be just, yeah. Nice. Okay, now we’re coming to to the next tip. Your you don’t only need your perfect week, you need your real week, right? So I would recommend you to have this perfect week on a completely different calendar that you can put sample see or no don’t see. So you can hide it, which gives you a specter. And then you need a weekly review. Right? In my opinion, it’s one of the most important leads to sustainable success, right to sustainable productivity, to getting better in your time management, planning sessions, weekly planning sessions, where you reviewing your week. And in my case, now, I will just give it really concrete for you. In my review, I will look at my perfect week, and I look at my real week and compare it. And now I’m thinking about how close I am I? Where’s the difference? Why is there a difference? Can I make something better than next week. And then if I have to, I update my perfect week. And then when I’m doing that after a few weeks, I’m getting really close to my sweet spot. Right? And you can constantly updating your perfect week, depending on your needs, right? For example, the last month, I want to concentrate more on word of stuff like this. So I updated my perfect week. It’s a perfect tool to match all your needs. But you need the glue is the weekly review. So you need a really play planning session. To update your your week. Yeah, once in a while.
Christine
I agree. In general, it’s always good to review certain things, not just the perfect week, but in general, how do you work? Which kind of tools do you use? Are they really working for you? Obviously, we are focusing on calendar management, but just to throw this in as a sentence, reviewing not on a weekly basis, but on a regular basis. The Way of Working can really help you to get more productive.
Oliver
So if you’re thinking about the last week’s podcast episode, the task management this is obviously one of the area of focus, planning sessions reviewing sessions. All my planning sessions normally include one part is review. One part is preview. So if you haven’t for a week now we’re talking about time management perfect and but also in other areas is really important. Okay, now we have just used I just will summarize the tips and then I will give you some more. Only use one calendar. And if you can just use a digital one that can really merge time and energy management and Of course, know your goals. So merge your priorities, priority management as well. Start to think about your perfect week. Yeah, being proactive instead of reactive, right. And the fourth is updated be in your weekly review. So you weekly planning sessions and renewed session to be up to date. But this is like the most important things if you, if you do this, you will see your time management will explode by but I want to give you some more advices. To, to be honest, the first one is eliminate or future, right, if you’re in high performance, and I think, see we both made the same mistake, less but better, really important. Think about what you were where you add to your calendar before you do it. Right. So if one thing that normally I’m talking to my clients, especially if they’re like, be your stuff like this, if somebody sent you an invitation, if you want to add something, first in your head, thinking about no. And then try to sell yourself the meeting, why should you go on the meeting? Why should you take this kind of appointment, right. So less things on the calendar, but better. This is like really important. One thing that we’re focusing on is managing time tasks, etc, but in my opinion, the first thing is more important. First, eliminate or filter, what should go on your system like this is really, really important. And the second and last is commitment. Everything which goes on your calendar is only so this, obviously, we will not fulfill it one to one a percent of the time and not perfectly. But try to get inside this kind of state that everything that that you understood important, with everything that you will put on your calendar, you will fill it right. And then if you combine it and write, don’t put too much stuff on your calendar, but if you do it on the calendar, Wi Fi to get in the state of you will do it, then it will be a really big thing on your whole productivity system. And about commitment, one last thing, and then I will hand you pristine, the really important thing that I will highly recommend everybody to think about for a minute is commitments towards yourself are as important as towards others. I repeat commitments towards yourself are as important as commitment to other. So normally what I see is a time box for working on your goals, or your sports sessions in the evening, or your meditation session in the morning that you schedule, right. And then somebody within maybe unimportant call will ask you for a call and you will answer your own commitment for doing for doing meditating or I don’t know. And writing this appointment inside of people normally, it’s completely normal commitments to others are more important than a commitment to yourself. And I hope to find a bit to think about right. So eliminate less but better, and commitment. For those minutes. The calendar is holy, this will be my last tips. And I think now we have enough for just building a nice calendar management system.
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