Simple Scheduling Tips to Improve Productivity

Getting the most out of your day can be challenging. For many of us, focusing on what’s important is often hindered by putting out fires, distractions and back and forth correspondence – especially when it comes to the seemingly simple scheduling of meetings. 

A little bit of planning and structure can help you move forward and achieve your daily goals. Leveraging technology to work more efficiently is a great move in the right direction. 

In this article, we’ll share our top tips for scheduling your day.

Understand how you spend your time

Often, you’ll be tempted to complete what's in front of you instead of working towards your future goals. After all, this task is on your desk now and it’s only going to take half an hour. The problem is, all these small tasks stack up, and soon you will have done nothing toward achieving your strategic objectives. Don’t waste your time on things that are not important. The same applies to correspondence. Do you need to respond to each and every email as it hits your inbox? Set goals and stick to them.

The best productivity tools to manage tasks

According to the 2020 State of Work Report, a staggering 91% of workers say that they would like to access modern technology solutions to help them work better. Project management apps like Basecamp, Trello, StoriesOnBoard, and Asana are a great way to organize tasks and projects, keep track of approaching deadlines and visualize what your day actually looks like.  

Being able to prioritize, re-organize and assign time to tasks is an efficient way to manage your time and stay on top of what needs to be done. 

Schedule Your Time

Gone are the days of keeping a pen and diary at hand to schedule appointments. Today, automation is the best and most efficient way of scheduling meetings and appointments quickly, without unnecessary back and forth. Scheduling tools like ScheduleOnce and InviteOnce synch easily with your calendar and take care of all the time-consuming admin associated with meeting planning. You can have a dedicated booking page with your available time slots or if you want a little more control, you can send one-time links to whoever you want to meet with. Scheduling tools are a fantastic way to eliminate one of the biggest culprits of time wastage from your day – back and forth emails.   

What the Pros Say

There are many best-selling books out there that claim to hold the secrets of ultimate productivity and success. Titles such as The 4-Hour Workweek, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Eat That Frog!, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World and Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity all feature plans and methodologies that promise, if followed correctly, a surefire path to success. While there is no one-size-fits-all methodology that works for everyone, there are common themes among all these books that can be applied quite readily in any business:

• Check email once a day 
• Dedicate your morning to what's important, not urgent
• Schedule uninterrupted time for strategic tasks that require focus
• Spend as little time as possible on small tasks and correspondence
• Set agendas to meetings to keep them focused
• Organize your day and set goals for what you want to achieve
• Stay off social media and avoid distractions

We all have limited time in the day to get as much done as we can. Employing simple scheduling techniques can help you work more efficiently and achieve exactly what you need to. 

You can take the first step to being more productive right now. Try ScheduleOnce free for 14 days.