These days having your calendar available electronically is almost a requirement. Most of us are so busy with both our professional and personal lives, keeping track in order to keep up with all the things to do is essential. I have always been a pencil and paper calendar (and lots of sticky notes) kind of girl, but have transitioned to and love only having my digital calendar. Being able to not only keep track of scheduled events like calls and meetings, but also reminders and tasks is great. My favorite thing is marking a task complete when I finish it. And rescheduling anything to a different day or time is too easy. No eraser needed.
If you are like most people you may have multiple calendars you are managing. Perhaps a work calendar for your business, a personal calendar and even the calendars of family members. The most difficult part of this juggling act is if all these calendars are on different platforms. Checking multiple calendars can be a bit much and often important tasks and reminders can get lost in the shuffle.
Below you will find the steps needed to help untangle the mess by merging all the calendars you need to run your life into one. It will take some time on the front end, but will be worth it once you have all your need to do, know and remember items in one place.
Step 1 ~ Determine which calendar will serve as your main calendar. If you are a business owner, I would suggest using your business calendar for this purpose.
Step 2 ~ Manually migrate all important dates and appointments from any other calendars you have. Look at least a year into the future to ensure all important dates like birthdays are captured. Alternatively, If you prefer to keep your personal and business calendars separate, you can subscribe to your personal calendar from your business calendar. Separate yet together, win win.
Step 3 ~ Have close family members whose appointments and events impact your day to day scheduling share their calendars with you. You will have access to their information. You can also toggle their calendars on and off. This proves to be helpful in allowing you to choose to view their calendar only when you need to reference it. This can also work well for any client calendars you need to have access to.
Step 4 ~ Make sure all calendar invites are sent using the email address tied to your new main calendar going forward. Again you can toggle other calendars on and off to prevent too much messiness on your calendar when you are hard at work.
Step 5 ~ If you use a calendaring software such as Acuity for your clients to schedule time with you, be sure it is connected to your business calendar. This will automate the communication between the two calendars, and eliminate the need to manually input scheduled calls and meetings. If time is blocked off either calendar, it will show on both.
Following the steps above will help get all of your calendars organized and viewable in one place. This will save you so much time and help make sure nothing gets lost or forgotten. Happy calendaring!
