Daily tasks can quickly pile up and create what seems like an endless to-do list. If only there was a tool that could help you manage your tasks and, as a result, increase your productivity. Enter calendar software. Too often calendars are seen only as tools that help us keep track of big events. Meetings, birthdays and work events may be saved in your calendar.
But calendars can and should be used for something more. You can also add daily tasks to your calendar. When using calendar tasks, these five tips will help you make the most of your time and maximize your productivity.
1. Use integrations
When you initially decide to add tasks to your calendar, you are now faced with a completely new challenge. How should you proceed? If you choose to manually add tasks to your calendar, this may take a while. You will feel stressed and overwhelmed, the opposite effect a calendar should have. When used correctly, your calendar should reduce stress and make your workload more manageable.
A quick way to add tasks to your calendar is to integrate task management software with your calendar software. An integration can save you time if you already use a tool like Asana or Todoist to manage tasks. And since so many tasks are related to deadlines for larger projects, having both in one place will maximize productivity.
Even if you don’t use task management software, look into what other integrations might be possible. Calendar software such as Calendar, Microsoft Calendar, and Google Calendar have the ability to integrate with various types of software. For example, many calendars can integrate with popular project management software. Your favorite project management tool often already has many of your work tasks. So by combining your project management software, you are in a sense adding your own to-do list to your calendar.
2. Coordinate activities with events
Once you add your tasks or integrate your to-do list with your calendar, you can do so much more. Now is the time to reach your true productivity potential. With tasks, meetings, and other calendar events in one view, feeling more organized is just the beginning. You’ll also realize how your tasks seamlessly interact with calendar events.
If you think about it, every event in a calendar has tasks associated with it. If you have a business meeting, there may be something you need to prepare in advance. If you have a major work project, you probably have several tasks to complete before the deadline. Even personal events, such as a friend’s birthday dinners, involve tasks. For example, a task can be a helpful reminder to buy a birthday present.
Adding tasks to your calendar lets you easily see which ones coordinate different events, projects, and meetings. This can help you understand how you should prioritize tasks. Let’s say you look at your calendar at the beginning of the week. If you see that you have a project due on Friday, tasks related to that project should be your top priority. Other tasks may be related to the following week’s events or have the flexibility to be moved. If you can prioritize the items on your to-do list, you will reduce stress and increase productivity.
3. Clean up your tasks
It’s important to prioritize tasks once they’re placed on your calendar. But while many of the tasks on your calendar are event-related, not all of them are. You need to take the time to consider your tasks holistically to improve productivity. Learn how you should prioritize all tasks (not just event-related ones). Determine which activities cause you to lose focus and where you can compensate for inefficiencies.
Every task has a certain importance; otherwise you wouldn’t put it on your calendar. But it’s good to look at all your tasks monthly, weekly or even daily and prioritize. You can use the Eisenhower Matrix to determine which tasks are urgent and important and which are not. Then, you will know which tasks to focus on now and which ones to eliminate. The other two categories are important but not urgent (schedule for later) and urgent but not essential (delegate to someone). Using this matrix helps you prioritize tasks and clear up what might otherwise be an overly crowded calendar.
Another great way to ensure you spend your time wisely is to use automation. By automating some tasks on your calendar, you can avoid monotonous work and dedicate time to what’s truly important. By sharing your calendar with others or sending meeting links, you can avoid back and forth when scheduling meetings. You can also automate various sales-related tasks, such as automated emails to prospects. You can also use sorting rules to tidy up your inbox.
4. Watch how you spend your time
After you’ve been putting tasks on your calendar for a few months, you’ll notice things. Adding tasks to your calendar means you truly have every aspect of your day mapped out. You will better understand how you spend the hours of your day. When you can see, down to the minute, how your day is spent, you can make positive changes.
You may feel exhausted and notice that most of your days are filled with meetings and repetitive tasks. If this is the case, change the way your days are structured. No matter how you spend your day, make sure every part is scheduled. Time blocking is a very effective strategy, even if you’re only planning a one-hour break for yourself. Knowing when you should rest and when you should work will ensure you are always focused on the task.
Beyond just the day-to-day, you can also start analyzing what you accomplish in a week and a month. Looking at your results and setting goals can help you immensely. If you’re already making strides and achieving your goals, understand which activities contribute. Make sure you keep up with these behaviors. If there’s a goal you want to achieve, find out how your calendar can help you achieve it.
5. Use all the features
Finally, make sure you use all available features. Simply creating a checklist of tasks isn’t the only thing you can do when using calendar software. First, whenever you add a task, you can also add details. When you have a busy schedule, keeping up with everything becomes overwhelming. Any notes or details you can add to a task can be helpful.
You can also make some tasks recurring. Maybe you want to send an email to your boss at the end of each week detailing your progress on work tasks. Or maybe you want to take the time to clean out your inbox every month. Whether you need a task to be weekly, biweekly, or monthly, this is all possible with a digital calendar.
You can also color code anything in your calendar. Typically, events and tasks will automatically be assigned a different color. But if you want even more organization, you can simply color code your assignments. Use one color for work tasks and one for personal tasks. Or group things into even more categories: project tasks, recurring tasks, personal tasks, and miscellaneous tasks.
Take control of your to-do list; Don’t let it control you. When you have a surprising number of daily tasks, it can feel overwhelming. You may not know where to start. Or you may feel like you’ll never get through it all. But with the right tool, like a properly used calendar, you can take control of your days. Goodbye, stressful days. Hi, manageable workload.
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