the default tool for managing meetings and appointments, and has been embraced widely in the corporate workplace. The calendar centralises all of your meetings in one place, and it works pretty well most of the time. But you also have many, many tasks and priorities to juggle outside of meetings. This is where systems become decentralised, with work buried in separate ‘piles’. This is neither efficient nor effective.
The case for using electronic calendars as your main meeting scheduling tool is obvious to most. Meetings happen in collaboration with others. Our schedules are complex, and using a system that allows us to clearly check everyone's availability and lock in mutually convenient meeting times seems only logical.
The case for using an electronic task list is not so clear to many, so fewer have made the leap to ditch their paper lists in favour of digital tools. For me, it all boils down to one simple but compelling function. With the click of a button emails can be converted into tasks and scheduled as prioritised actions in tools like Outlook! Just as you benefit from the efficiency of meeting invitations that are scheduled at the agreed time once accepted, your productivity will be increased once you begin to schedule emails as tasks to be prioritised and completed at the appropriate time.
So you need one tool to manage your meetings and one tool to manage your tasks. Just taking that first step towards centralisation will increase your focus and effectiveness. And if you create a system that combines both your meetings and your priorities in one view, it is very likely that your sense of control and productivity will undergo a massive increase, as you start to manage all of your activities from one platform.
Once you have set up a centralised system for managing your actions, you need to look at what feeds this system. How does work arrive on your desk (or in your inbox), and how do you make good decisions about what work should get your time and attention? These inputs are the second element that needs to be considered in your integrated productivity system.
Many of us receive hundreds of inputs every day in the form of emails, phone calls, voicemails, instant messages, physical interruptions, meeting actions and thoughts. Much of this is just noise and does not deserve much of our time and attention, but some of it is important and does need action. Should we do it now or later, though? We need to avoid reacting instantly to every incoming email, but at the same time, we don't want this work just to pile up until it overwhelms us.
The key to managing your inputs effectively is to take a proactive approach to processing incoming work and to create a connection between your inputs system and your actions system. New inputs that need your attention should be either dealt with immediately or recorded in your action management system, depending on their urgency. Using your inbox as an action system for emails does not work, as you just end up with a pile of ‘action emails’ buried in a pile of ‘non-action emails’, with no sense of their respective priority or timing.
Your inbox has one purpose, and that is to receive emails. Just like the letterbox outside your house, it should be emptied regularly and the mail dealt with appropriately. Of course, on any given day you will receive way more emails than letters, and you need strategies to reduce the noise so you only have to deal with relevant messages. You also need an efficient filing system in place so you can file things quickly and easily – and find them again just as quickly and easily.
Your ability to manage the flow of incoming work, whether it is email or any other form of input, is critical to your productivity. If you do not control your inbox, it will control you. Email is not the main reason you have a job. You could contribute so much more than that, if you only had the time. We need to make the time by being clever and harnessing the power of technology.
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