“Never let anyone own your schedule.” It’s simple and obvious, yet genius. Many creatives find it hard to manage their schedule and tackle the tasks they need to get accomplished.
Over the years, I have struggled with a mixture of ADHD, over-committing myself partly due to being a people pleaser and not having great stress management tools. As my grandmother has told me many times, “you’re going to meet yourself coming one day.” What she meant by that was I need to slow down. But how do you slow down when you have a mile-long list of to do’s?
Over the years, whenever I didn’t follow this advice, I was stressed and unproductive. Gradually I learned that planning and following a routine makes a huge difference in how I feel and what I get done. Here are some of the things that help me manage my schedule that you may find helpful:
1. Create a routine
No matter what you are working on, create a routine. Block times for specific activities, and stick with the plan. Turn your calendar into a bunch of blocks, and put activities into those blocks. Whatever is not planned, you don’t do. If you want free time, plan it.
Your routine may change through the year, but at any given time it’s better to have a plan. For example, if you are working on launching a client project or onboarding a new wedding, and need to do client discovery, uploading their account, then prioritize and block specific times for each activity. A calendar app is a very useful tool. I love the calendar app from Honeybook that links to my google calendar and my phone.
2. Group meetings and calls into blocks
For example, if you need to have outside meetings, block two and a half days a week for those meetings, and go to the outside meetings only during those times. Do the same thing for in-office meetings. This way you are not only creating a chunk of time for meetings, you are also creating other blocks of time that you will be able to important work. Do the same thing with calls, and book them all back to back.
3. Optimize time for different meeting types
Personally, I am now a big fan of 30-minute meetings and 10-minute calls. I think 10-minute calls are a great way to initially connect with someone or give someone quick advice. You can do a Google Hangout or Skype if you prefer to see the person instead of just hearing them. The reason 10-minute calls work is because people skip BS and get to the point. Try it. Ten minutes is actually a lot of time, if you focus. I prefer to do these calls on Fridays, when I am usually working from home.
I am not a big fan of introductory coffee meetings, lunches and dinners. I am a huge fan of coffee and meals with people I already know. Those meetings are typically productive and fun, but the first time you are meeting someone, it’s more productive to do a call or an actual 30-minute meeting in the office.
Here are the types of meetings you might want to book:
30-minute meeting virtual meeting to check in with clients
45-minute meeting outside of the office. Allow 15 minutes for travel.
10-minute call to help someone who needs advice
30-minute weekly staff meeting
Whatever meetings you hold, group them into blocks depending on your particular schedule. If you feel like a particular type of meeting needs more or less time, then adjust the block accordingly.
4. Use appointment slots
There is a great feature in Google Calendar called Appointment Slots. It allows you to book a chunk of time, and then split it into pieces. For example, I can book three hours of outside meetings and then split it into three meetings — one hour each. Or I can book one hour of calls and split it into six calls at 10 minutes each. There is also a bunch of specific tools, such as doodle, that do that too.
The next step is to create bit.ly links for different blocks of time. You can have a link for your outside meetings, another link for 30-minute inside meetings and yet another one for 10-minute calls. You then share these links, and they can book the time with you. I’ve done this with new potential clients and current clients and it was amazingly effective. It minimized the back and forth on email and saved a ton of time for me and the clients.
This won’t work with everyone, because some people may find this rude. In any case, if you are not comfortable sending the link to a someone, then you can use your own appointment slots, suggest a few meeting times, and then book the specific slot yourself.
If you are asking someone to meet, always propose several specific alternative times such as Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. or 5 p.m. on Wednesday.
5. Block time for email
This is the most important tip in the whole post. Email will own you unless you own it. To own your email you must avoid doing it all the time. To do that you need to schedule the time to do your email. It is absolutely a must. In fact it is so important that I wrote a whole entire post about managing email.
6. Plan your exercise and family time
Unless you put it on the calendar, it won’t get done. Well, that applies to your exercise and time with your family. Whether you go in the morning, afternoon or evening, do it three times a week or every day, put exercise time on the calendar.
The same applies to planning time with your family and significant others. If you are a workaholic, you will end up stealing time from your family unless you book it in advance and train yourself to promptly unplug.
7. Actually manage your time
I think about my time a lot. I think about where it goes. I think about where can I get more of it, and how to optimize it.
I find myself thinking about what I am doing, who am I meeting with and why a lot more. I meet with a lot of people every week. My schedule is particularly insane raising three kids and managing two companies. Yet, because I manage my calendar, follow a routine, plan meetings in blocks and use appointment slots, I find myself less overwhelmed and less stressed.
The major apps I use on a daily basis to help manage my time is Honeybook, Gmail, and Artful Agenda.
Taking ownership of my calendar and planning my days and weeks made me a happier and more productive human. I hope this post helps you get there too.
Bonus Tip: Outsource, outsource, outsource
I am a huge proponent of outsourcing things in my personal and professional life that take up time and brain space. When I first started my wedding business, I was a one-woman show, doing everything under the sun (seriously, just thinking about it makes me break out into a cold sweat).
Something that may seem insignificant to most, but was a life-changer for me and my family was hiring a weekly house keeper. While I was mostly able to keep up with the day to day cleaning tasks, I would easily become overwhelmed with laundry. The folding and putting away of the hundreds of tiny pieces of clothing that are so close in size…. it was too much. Three kids that play hard and get very dirty require a lot of clothes and towels.
Same goes for outsourcing social media. I created a system called Social Stories for Wedding Pros that takes the guesswork out of posting and by doing this, I can hire anyone to pick up where I left all, schedule my images and text and insert hashtags. This saves me at least 5-10 hours monthly.
