How to Organize Your Calendar - The Ultimate Guide

Summary

In this video, the importance of mastering your calendar to enhance productivity and punctuality is emphasized. The speaker presents three essential rules for setting up and using a calendar: 1) Tailor your system to suit your needs, whether digital or physical. 2) Add events and relevant details to keep your schedule organized. 3) Check your calendar regularly and set timely notifications to stay on top of your commitments. Practical tips for quick event capture, recurring events, and optimizing notifications are also shared. The video concludes with a Skillshare promotion to help viewers further optimize their productivity systems.

Takeaways

• 😀 Setting up a calendar system that works for you is key to productivity—choose what fits your needs (digital or physical).
• 📅 Using Google Calendar or similar digital apps can help you stay organized, with features like reminders and color-coding for different events.
• 🔑 Your brain is not designed to remember everything; externalize tasks and events to reduce cognitive load, as David Allen advises: 'Your brain is for having ideas, not for holding them.'
• 🎨 Creating 'life buckets' for different types of events (e.g., work, study, appointments) helps visually separate and organize your schedule.
• 🛠️ Apps like Fantastical offer features like natural language processing, which makes adding events to your calendar faster and easier.
• 🔁 Recurring events are a powerful feature in digital calendars—set them once and have them repeat automatically to save time.
• 📍 Adding relevant information (like location or context) to calendar events makes your calendar a comprehensive source of truth for all your commitments.
• 📝 Optional events can also be added to your calendar. For example, you can schedule optional coaching calls or study sessions and decide later if you have time.
• 🗂️ Create reference calendars for useful information, such as professors’ office hours or gym schedules, to easily cross-check with your main calendar.
• ⏰ Make checking your calendar a daily routine. This helps you prepare for the day and avoid surprises that might disrupt your schedule.
• 🔔 Set up notifications in advance for events, considering human psychology (like the planning fallacy) to give yourself ample time to prepare and avoid stress.

Q & A

What is the main goal of using a calendar system, according to the video?

The main goal is to create an external source of truth for everything going on in your life, including tasks, ideas, contacts, and events. This helps you stay organized and ensures you never miss important things.

What are the three main rules for setting up a calendar system effectively?

1. Set up your calendar in a way that suits you. 2. Add events and relevant information to those events. 3. Get information from your calendar at the right time.

What is the importance of choosing the right calendar system, digital or physical?

The right calendar system is the one you will actually use consistently. Whether it’s digital or physical depends on personal preference and the features that best suit your lifestyle, such as the ability to set recurring events or reminders.

Why is it important to divide calendar events into 'life buckets'?

Dividing events into 'life buckets' helps visually separate different categories of life events, making it easier to manage and view your schedule. It also allows for customized notification preferences for each bucket, ensuring you’re only reminded about what matters most.

What is the advantage of using a digital calendar over a paper calendar?

Digital calendars offer features like recurring event support, reminders, and easy access from multiple devices, such as a phone, computer, or watch. These features help keep your schedule streamlined and prevent human error.

How can quick capture tools, like Fantastical, optimize the event-adding process?

Quick capture tools like Fantastical allow you to add events quickly by using natural language processing. You can type or speak details of an event, and the app will automatically parse and organize the event with minimal effort.

What is the benefit of setting up recurring events in a digital calendar?

Setting up recurring events ensures that repeated tasks or appointments are automatically scheduled without needing to manually input them each time. This saves time and helps maintain consistency in managing tasks.

How can adding additional information to event descriptions make your calendar more useful?

By adding relevant details like meeting agendas, links, or location information to event descriptions, you reduce the need to search through emails or other systems. It centralizes all necessary information for an event in one place, making it easier to access when needed.

Why is it important to check your calendar every day?

Checking your calendar daily helps you stay informed about upcoming events, minimizing the risk of forgetting important appointments. It also primes your brain for the tasks ahead, reducing stress and last-minute surprises.

What psychological factors should you consider when setting up event notifications?

Humans tend to underestimate how long tasks will take due to the planning fallacy. To compensate, set up notifications well in advance, potentially using a 'fudge ratio' to adjust your initial time estimate, ensuring you have enough time to prepare for events.