8 Calendar Mistakes to Avoid (for busy people)!

first up as someone working a full-time job in Tech with a YouTube channel on the side I actually do not time block my calendar I see videos like this I think it looks fantastic but I just wouldn't have the time to maintain and time Block 14 different calendars instead I use the Highlight method from the book make time at the start of my day I write down the one task I definitely want to complete and on my calendar I time block that one highlight in between my other commitments and because making time for one thing is relatively effortless I've been literally able to follow this method for the past three years which in my opinion is much better than starting a strict time blocking habit and giving up after a couple of weeks there's an entire chapter dedicated to the Highlight method in the book but there're basically three questions we can ask ourselves when picking our highlight for the day first what's the most pressing thing I've done today second at the end of the day which highlight will bring me the most satisfaction and third when I reflect on today what will bring me the most Joy moving along to some tactical tips

as a busy professional I don't actually create events from within Google Calendar instead I type in cal. new enter and I'm brought to a new event immediately and this works in most browsers both Mac and windows users can take this a step further by copying the new event URL pasting it into a free app launcher like Alfred for Mac or power toy run for Windows assigning a keyword and now I can just type in gcal enter and I'm brought to a new event page directly or after creating a project planning Google gole sheets I can use the at keyboard shortcut and start typing in the name of the meeting I'm going to be presenting in select the meeting and now I'm going to hover over this and I can now attach this document to the event directly saving me the hassle of having to like copy the URL here and pasting it within the event invite Pro tip you can do the exact same thing in Google Docs type at the event name select it hover over it and you can now attach this document to the event and we're barely getting started because within Gmail you might already know that you can click the three dots here to create an event with whoever you're corresponding with but this opens up a whole new tab you have to wait for it to load super unproductive instead hit reply set up a time to meet create an event to bring up both your calendars in the companion bar to schedule some time without having to leave Gmail and have the email content automatically added within the calendar invite or if you want to offer multiple time slots for the recipient select offer times your free select the time range adjust the duration of each slot and your correspondent will be able to select a time of their choosing by the way this video is not being sponsored by any calendar app but it is supported by those of you who subscribe to my paid productivity newsletter on Google tips Link in the description to learn more

third mistake to avoid not tailoring the calendar settings for your own behavior for example I bet if you press the keyboard shortcut X right now either nothing will happen or you'll see a 4-day view of your calendar but if I press X or select the corresponding view from this drop down I see a 3-day view you can customize this under calendar settings first go to keyboard shortcuts and make sure this is enabled then you go to view options set the custom view to however many days you want 3 days works really well for me and while we're here make sure you have checked the reduced the brightness of past events option I think this just makes the whole user interface slightly better next head on over to event settings and under default guest permissions make sure the modify event option is selected this is my biggest pet peeve at work if you send me a calendar invite and the time doesn't work for me and I can't move it we waste a lot of time going back and forth with modify event check by default both parties can now freely make changes to the event and for larger meetings where you don't want others making changes by mistake just uncheck it for that specific event Pro tip back in the main calendar view you can actually use your mouse to select the number of days you want to view like six 5 3 two you get the point the fourth

mistake to avoid as a busy professional searching for time zones instead of leaving the Calendar app I can from within Google Calendar settings go to time zone enable display secondary time zone choose a location I interact with the most frequently label it and display that secondary time zone in my main calendar view taking this a step further I also choose to show world clock and add the locations of my totally not imaginary friends so that if any of them ever deci Ed to accept my catch-up invitations I can see the local time in all of their locations by just clicking on the event Pro tip you can easily remind yourself which time zones your frequent contacts sit in by clicking the three dots next to their name settings and undername add their location or time zone in Brackets next up super quick tip

when I'm in the main calendar view instead of relying on the task app in the companion bar and having to toggle between my task lists I can simply click this button here to view all my tasks in

full screen the sixth mistake to avoid relying only on calendar notifications let me explain what I mean for normal events like meetings I have a 3-minute notification applied across the board and this works fine for most situations but if the event is a reminder for me to take action within that time slot for example this recurring reminder to update a weekly progress report I first choose the email notification type 10 minutes is fine and then I go into Gmail settings filter and blocked addresses create new filter in the from field I input calendar hyphen notification at google. com has the words update weekly report create filter apply the label followup you can create this label if you don't already have one now every week I will receive this email notification with a red follow-up label already applied so I know I need to take action here and within the email there's even a link to the document I need to use for this task because I had included this in the calendar invitation so I can just click into it from here if you're wondering why I have this interesting looking layout is because I follow the inbox zero workflow have tutorials for both Gmail and Outlook so check

those out after mistake number seven I try to avoid relying on my memory alone if you watch any of my other videos there's a good chance you already know David Allen's famous quote your brain is for having ideas not holding them so I have this recording event on Monday mornings with a checklist of action items I need to go through at the start of every week to set me up for success for the rest of that week you would think that me having worked in corporate for 10 years I would have this list memorized but no if I literally do not go through this 1 2 3 4 5 on Monday mornings I will forget something Pro Tip since this is also a recurring reminder for myself I have enabled the email notification here as well and I have the Gmail filter rule we just went through for this event as well mistake number

eight very underrated forgetting to clean up your meetings now I can sit here and share depressing stats like how the average worker spends 4 hours a week preparing for and attending meetings and how 42% of participants dial in and contribute literally nothing or I can share a practical way for us to take some of that time back enter the recurring meeting audit an amazing technique I learned from my colleague at Google she does this exercise every quarter I'm a bit lazy so I only do this like once a year but basically take 30 minutes and go through all the meetings you attended in the past 3 months then in this template write down the meeting name how long those meetings are how frequently those meetings are occur and the total number of meetings per quarter this column will automatically sum up the number of hours you're spending in meetings and part of the reason I love this method is you get to really visualize and see how much of your time is spent in meetings next decide whether that meeting still makes sense to keep and if so whether the Cadence still makes sense I'm willing to bet that all of us have potential for time saving if you want to suggest a change but you're worried about offending the other party use this meeting audit best practice as an excuse and position it as a timesaver for both of you 99% of professionals will feel relieved to get some time back if you enjoyed these calendar tips you might want to check out this video on how I get things done juggling a full-time job and a YouTube channel see you on the next video in the meantime have a great one