Time based reminders come in two forms: Specific time-based events and Recurrences. When dealing with events at a specific time/place your calendar is the best place to track the event. Recurrences are those tasks that do not have a tight timeline, but you do want regular reminders for. For instance, imagine you wanted to be reminded once a quarter to update your resume. I personally use my task system to manage these recurrences because it is flexible enough to handle more complex scenarios but there are lots of options like reminder apps for your phone that can serve similar needs.
We cannot move past a suggestion to put things on your calendar without talking about how to manage one effectively. It is highly likely that you have a lot more on your calendar than you need and are not able to make time for the major events in your life.
Too many people treat their calendar as another inbox and a way for others to take their time but as you know your calendar is a place to put processed things not captured ones. Instead, you must see your calendar as a visual way of representing your priorities. Priorities should be both your personal priorities and those given to you by your direct manager who acts as a proxy for the organization.
If most of your time is not dedicated to achieving the results you are responsible for then you need to readjust your calendar to provide you with the time to deliver. To ensure our time is reflective of our priorities we will add things in the order of importance.
Note: Unless you are very new in your career or have recently started a new job where your calendar is wide open, I suggest starting two or more weeks out on your calendar. Beyond standing meetings your calendar is likely to be wide open in two or three weeks even if this week is back-to-back meetings.
We will populate your calendar in the following order.
- Time for your family/life
- Inbox processing times
- Big Rock time
- Meetings with your network
We start with family/life events because it is easily missed especially when looking at your time with a work focused lens. It also happens to be the most important thing for most people. So, book time with yourself to eat lunch, walk the dog, and have dinner with your family and friends. You will be shocked at how easy it is to massage the times other things happen if you are disciplined at setting appropriate boundaries on your time.
Once you have blocked the time needed for your personal life, I recommend scheduling two to three 15-to-20-minute blocks with yourself daily to process your inboxes (email, meeting notes, book notes, notes from a one-off conversation etc.) Blocking this time has two benefits:
- It forces you to get more focused about tasks that can easily be distracting
- It ensures you have the time to get everything out of your inbox and into the appropriate resting places which builds the trust in your systems necessary for them to be successful.
The next kind of priority I recommend scheduling is time for your ‘Big Rocks.’ Make sure that you have at least three 30–60-minute blocks on your calendar per week that you can use to go heads down on your most important deliverables. By scheduling this time with yourself you can ensure that you have at least a few clear points throughout your week where you are able to deliver the results you are responsible for.
The last explicit time block I recommend scheduling is time to connect with people in your network. Regularly connecting with your professional network strengthens the relationships and ensures that if you ever need help you will have the resources you need.
From there you can allow others to book time in the remaining space. As new invites come to you remember that every time you say yes to something you are voting with your time for that thing to be a priority. If a meeting does not allow you to make progress on one of your priorities and does not contribute to building a relationship, then decline it respectfully.
Navigation
graph LR;
A(Intellectual Craftsmanship)-->B(The Information Framework)
B-->C(Capture)
B-->G(Process)
G-->D(Time Systems)
G-->E(Task Systems)
G-->F(Reference Systems)
B-->H(Relate)
B-->I(Create)
style D stroke-width:4px
click A "/posts/intro/"
click B "/posts/info-framework/"
click C "/posts/capture/"
click E "/posts/tasksystems/"
click F "/posts/referencesystems/"
click H "/posts/relate/"
click I "/posts/create/"