Your Diary: why electronic wins every time
In my business, I meet lots of different people and the whole diary camp is still split – paper verses electronic. When I’m offering advice on improvement, productivity and other areas I’m firmly in the electronic diary camp. Here is why…
Your lone working cover…
For me, I would say that this is one of the top reasons to use an electronic diary
If you work alone and/or you are out and about a lot, this can be your saviour. Share it with your partner, trusted friend or contact so that at least one person knows where you are at all times.
Ensure you make your entries as clear as possible.
Time: Try to be accurate with your time scale. Allow in the travel time.
Full details: Meeting with John Smith, The Engineering Firm (14.00-15.00)
Location: Use the Google Maps entry for full details
Additional Information: In the description box ensure you pop in a phone number for the person you are meeting. This helps if you need to call them but also if someone else needed it in an emergency it’s there
This way, should you be delayed home or you just need to share your day and week with someone, you can do so with ease.
You can make entries private, so if you are sharing with a virtual assistant or personal assistant, for example, you can hide any personal entries. You could agree a colour for private meetings so that they know it’s “off limits”.
Attachments: You can attach any relevant documents to the meeting so that it makes the meeting straight forward
Reoccurring with ease…
You only need to enter annual entries once – birthdays, MOT, anniversaries, just enter and click the “annually on…”
Equally you can do this weekly or monthly for any other regular diary entries: Kids football, gym, a class, pick-ups etc.
Colouring…
By using colours you can make your day visually easier to digest, come up with a key and stick with it.
For example:
Work/business entries – yellow
Kids – purple
Personal appointments – green
Tentative/Unconfirmed – red
You can set a default for the one you use most common (work for me) and then just edit the entry for other ones.
No crossing out…
Something changes – simply move it to the new date or delete it. No more messy crossing out. I don’t know about you but I used to hate it when I had to cross something out in my paper diary!
Never lose it…
You have a paper diary… your life is entered within it, it’s your baby, it’s your lifeline….
Then you leave it on a train, your bag gets stolen, a pint of water cascades across the side and ruins it. I know this sounds a bit extreme but the above are real life possibilities…what’s your back up?
Schedule meetings with ease…
How annoying is email ping pong when you are trying to set up a meeting with someone?
Monday at 12pm? Thursday at 3pm? Where will we meet? Nope, need alternatives…the list goes on.
Get yourself set up with using a Chrome extension or an additional app to help you to offer the times you are free, for the length you require, at the location you suggest.
As you’ll see below, Boomerang Calendar helps you select suitable slots and include valuable information. You can include various actions such as reserving the times in your diary so you don’t double book yourself and best of all, all the recipient to confirm with one click – job done!
Once you have selected the proposed options, they are inserted into your email and the other person simply selects the most suitable choice for them.
Could you make things easier in your life and business?
If you are not using an electronic diary, have a think about how it can save you time, make things more efficient and streamlined.
If you already use one, could you do anything to save any more time? Read more top tips here
Give it a whirl and let me know how you get on or ask me for advice: 07900 958 459 or hello@beckystevenson.co.uk