4 Tips to Declutter your Calendar!
“The key is not to prioritize what is in your schedule, but to schedule your priorities!”
It’s been few months since my last post! - it took a little bit of time to put together this post.
This week has been an incredibly hard week. I won’t bore you with all the specifics, but this was one of the tiring and mentally exhausting weeks for me. I’m just thankful to be cruising into Friday in one piece..feels like I really earned this weekend!
One good thing that came out is that I realized how much I needed to declutter things, specially on the professional front. So I started with decluttering my calendar - clearing out those tasks and meetings which were unnecessary, time consuming and were of least priority.
Here are a few tips that helped me declutter my calendar (as well as my mind) :
DON’T MAKE OTHER PEOPLE URGENCY AS YOUR PRIORITY.
Well, this requires a lot of bravery to stand for your priorities. The first step is to know what your priorities are, only then you will be able to assess if it really aligns with your activities. Other people urgencies is NOT your priority.
The good way to start is 1-3-5 Approach. Splitting the tasks into large(1), medium(3) and five small tasks (5) to tackle. That way you’re working towards important and impactful tasks that are necessary for that day.
‘BE PICKY WITH YOUR CALENDER INVITES’
“Just because they hold it, doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be there” - Edith Onderick-Harvey, founder of performance and productivity consultancy, has a point there. You need to be really sure if you are needed before you accept an invite. Additionally, learn to see if the meeting has a purpose and/or agenda, so to save everyone’s time. It’s not worth coming into the meetings with nothing.
CREATE SPACE
Cleaning up your schedule requires applying various strategies that helps to prevent it from getting cluttered again. Experts suggests blocking chunks of time on your calendars when you are unable to attend meetings or phone calls and to work on your high priority/important projects that require your high focus.
MODES OF COMMUNICATION
Let’s be real, everything doesn’t require a meeting. Instead of scheduling a meeting or the unnecessary noise over chats, specially when the work culture today is dynamic and distributed with different time zones, try to see if things can be handled through low-profile communication and/or via email. Technology has revamped ways of working and the business approach on a global scale.
‘Declutter your brain by decluttering your calendar’ - “What I know for sure is when you declutter - whether its your home, your head or your heart - it is astounding what will flow into that space that will enrich you"!”
