3 simple principles to 2X your calendar scheduling

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Welcome, Rethinkers! This is Refresh. Rethink. We want to be more refreshing than Wim Hof’s ice baths.

It's no secret that I'm a productivity geek. You could even call testing productivity hacks a hobby of mine. But actually, it’s more than just a hobby, it’s a necessity.

You see, I have the attention span of a Golden Retriever puppy. If it weren’t for my productivity routines, I wouldn’t have accomplished anything.

Talking about productivity tools, Google Calendar is one of my biggest sidekicks. It keeps my puppy brain focused. In fact, if I were Batman, my calendar for sure would be Robin.

My second ally is Asana. Together we fight the villains in this world (Like The Evil Procrastinator and The Nefarious Captain Distraction). More about that in another issue or Refresh. Rethink.

Back to Google Calendar, there’s one particular thing that changed the game for me, when it comes to owning my time. I call it “backward planning”.

Now you’re thinking to yourself… What is “backward planning”?

Let me explain that using 3 simple principles.

Principle 1

The first principle of backward planning is to plan not just your appointments and meeting, but to plan your entire life. Your professional and personal lives should be separate, of course, but they can co-exist peacefully in one calendar. Like roommates.

Structuring your whole life boosts productivity on its own.

Your life is different than mine, but for inspiration, here are the categories I use in my life calendar:

• Self-time

• Off / Family time

• Appointments / Meetings

• Clients

• Execution

• Sports / Physical Activity

• Networking

• Learning / Studying

• Travel / Commute

• Sleep / Break / Rest

• Others

The next thing you do is color-code every category.

On Google Calendar’s paid plan, you get this beautiful report to see how much time you have planned per category. That gives you a massive insight into where you plan to spend your time in the future.

But how often does your day go as planned? Life happens when we're busy making other plans.

That’s where the second principle comes in.

Principle 2

When we go about our days, things rarely go as planned. Meetings take longer, ad-hoc urgencies pop up or we need more time for some tasks. 

When that happens, our calendars don't reflect reality anymore. That's where we lose the benefit of having a calendar. 

That’s where the word “backward” in “backward planning” appears.

Here’s how it goes.

Let’s say you planned to get up at 5:00 AM, do your morning routine for an hour, and then work on a client project. But, your neighbors were having a party at night and you couldn’t get out of bed before 7:00 AM. Morning planning screwed. Two hours lost.

What do you do then? You go to your calendar and adjust your calendar items backward. Basically, you adjust the time blocks to reflect reality.

Then during the morning, you planned to spend 2 hours on a proposal for a new client. But, instead of 2 hours, you’ve managed to do it in just 1.

You do want to reflect that as well in your calendar, so you adjust the time block from 2 hours to 1.

This might sound like a lot of work, right? But it takes only a few seconds to adjust past time blocks to reflect reality. And in any case, you open your calendar several times a day, so a few seconds really don’t cost you anything.

But how does this back-and-forth adjusting help us Refresh and Rethink our time, Leon?

Let me explain that in the final principle.

Principle 3

Every Sunday evening reserve some time to plan your next week.

But don’t create your schedule from scratch! Look back to last week to have a perfect reflection of the time you’ve spent on all your different categories.

While looking back at your past week ask yourself the following questions:

• Where did I overspend my time?

• What do I want to spend more time on next week?

• What categories are not relevant for this week?

You might realize that you’re used to planning 2 hours per day on client work, but you’re always short on time. That means you have to juggle other priorities all the time. Thanks to backward adjusting your calendar, you know how much time to schedule next week.

The same goes, of course, for categories where you might be allocating too much time.

Now you’ve cut out unnecessary waste from your calendar. You've built a schedule with Batman-like accuracy and punctuality. Batman is always there when you need him.

There you have it – three simple principles to 2x your calendar scheduling.

This productivity hack has helped me a ton and gives me peace of mind every week. Your calendar shouldn't be your prison, it should be a game that’s fun to play. Thanks to backward planning it becomes just that.

Do you use similar principles when planning your times? Or do you have some other method?

Let me know by replying to this e-mail.

And if you are new to this approach, I’d also love to hear how it works for you.

I plan to see you next week, so schedule a slot to Refresh. Rethink. next Saturday!

Leon

👋🏻 I reply to all emails myself, drop me your questions! 

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