Time Management Pitfall #2 - Using Your Calendar For Appointments

Kerul Kassel, Author of Productive Procrastination - Make It Work For You, Not Against You and the award-winning Stop Procrastinating Now - Five Radical Procrastination Strategies To Set You Free, both available atwww.Procrastivity.com

1. Don't Use Your Calendar For Appointments (only)

   This is a very common pitfall for many small business owners and professionals.  We sit down in November or December to create an annual business plan, then review it in the middle of the next year.  That's definitely helpful, especially if you have a staff that will be responsible for implementing the plan.  But unless you're clear about how that plan dictates your important actions, and unless you integrate your own personal plan into the mix and review those plans each week - breaking them down into smaller increments and actions - it's probable you'll have difficulty achieving your goals and dreams.

   We fail to establish plans because we get daunted by the idea of creating them, or we get so busy with details that there's little time to devote to something that feels less urgent.  We also think it will take too much time and be troublesome and awkward to implement our plans, and we get overwhelmed by all we need to do.  

   Some of us create to-do lists, which in the end frustrate and shame us - that's not a very productive strategy!  (Request my Special Report "3 Simple Secrets To Tripling Your Productivity Sustainably" at www.StopProcrastinatingNow.com for more on effectively and efficiently completing to-do's).

   Others fill their calendars with recurring daily and weekly tasks which they then ignore, usually because these actions aren't sustainably designed or scheduled.  

   Once you accept these initial reactions, and how normal they are, you can get beyond them to the few minutes each day it will take to focus on the critical and important actions that will give you the results you want.  

   Composing a plan for the day, using your calendar and longer-term objectives, takes just 5 minutes or so, and can easily result in a 50-300% increase in productivity.   Doing this in the morning, or the evening before at the end of the previous workday, gives you a head start and sharpens your focus.       When you take a few minutes to plan each day ahead of time, using hoped-for weekly and monthly milestones as a guide, you automatically prevent a whole lot of poorly-used time.  Regularly glancing at that daily plan 4-6 times during the day, you'll be able to weave in any newly developing circumstances, while still making swift advancement. 

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