Fighting the Calendar Chaos

The more responsibilities you have, the more meetings you get. Unfortunately, it's a typical story.

At some point of time there are so many meetings in the calendar, it's not clear how to manage the day.

To bring it back to a manageable state, I use the following tips:
🔸Book slots in the calendar for my working tasks
🔸Decline meetings that I think I don't need to attend (no clear agenda, already delegated, etc.)
🔸 Use color coded categories to classify the meetings. I mostly sort them out according to the importance and urgency, for example:
- Black: urgent and/or important, I must attend.
- Red: not urgent but important, need to attend.
- Orange: not so important, make sense to attend if I have time (e.g., some regular meetings or where I believe my team can make a decision without me).
- Gray: not needed, for my info that meeting is scheduled.

You can use whatever categories are convenient for you. But I don't recommend having more than 5 categories, it’s hard to keep them all in your head. Additionally, meetings categorization helps to review the week if there is enough time for important tasks. If not, it's a sign to reflect and change something.

#softskills #tips #productivity