subject: Using Your Calendar to Stay Focused and Achieve Success [print this page] Using Your Calendar to Stay Focused and Achieve Success
Effective use of a calendar can mean the difference in your level of productivity. I prefer a desk calendar to one that is online, but either one will work. When you look at your calendar, it tells the truth about what you consider to be important. How you block out your time and what you do with that amount of time is very critical to your success. If you are not making the progress you expect or you are not accomplishing what you know you are capable of, then take a peek at your calendar. In solid print you will see how you are using, or abusing your greatest resource of time.Time is our greatest resource as well as the great equalizer among all of us. It is one thing to have time and another to use it well and productively. Distractions will test us day in and day out. Those distractions are the great challenge that separates those who are stuck from those who are moving forward. We will all find distractions to be a challenge, some more then others, but it is a skill we must master because how we use out time is of great strategic importance.Your will find that your goals and priorities willk align themselves with how you spend your time. You will block out space in your calendar to focus on the things that will move you forward each day. Time allocation is something to assess each week to see where and how you can make improvements. Your time is of great value. This is your time to accomplish whatever you set out to achieve for yourself. Use your calender to make constant commitments to your success and then follow through.It's a good idea not to use your calendar for regular "To-Do" items, but instead keep your calendar for definite appointments, even if it's an appointment with yourself. If you use Outlook, there is an area called "Tasks" that will allow you to enter line items that are ordinarily known as things "To-Do." Only if these items include a definite scheduling of a block of time should you enter the item on your calendar. Most any system you use online will have some similar. If you learn to use your system, whatever you've chosen, you'll find that you won't be crowding your calendar with things that don't really belong there. Remember, put things on your calendar that have a specific time attached to it.
