Printing and Calendar Best Practices

Locked lesson.

Upgrade

About this lesson

Sometimes printing a calendar is helpful. This lesson shows the options and best practices for good scheduling.

Exercise files

Download this lesson’s exercise file.

4.08 printing-and-calendar-best-practices - Exercise.docx
83.5 KB

Quick reference

Printing and Calendar Best Practices

Print a hard copy of the calendar and good tips for calendar management.

When to use

Printing a copy of a busy calendar can save a lot of frustration if you are unable to log into your device to view your calendar.

Also, calendar best practices share some ideas gleaned from administrative assistants who work with busy travelers.

Instructions

To print a calendar

  • Open the calendar and change the view to Month, Week, or Day.​​​​​​

A calendars with text Description automatically generated with medium confidence

  • Press “Ctrl P” and the print screen will open.
  • Click Print and select the style you prefer from the Settings.
    A screenshot of a computer screen Description automatically generated     A screenshot of a menu Description automatically generated

Calendar best practices

Block time before and after meetings

  • DO: Consider transportation time to an appointment, whether walking to another building on site or taxi/uber/driving time.
  • DO: Allow a leeway window between meetings, whether it is for extra hashing of the topic, or just for a bathroom break.

Color coding

  • Don’t: Color code too much of your calendar or your boss’ calendar. Too much color can be as inefficient as no color at all.
  • DO:  Select a Color code for external meetings, like vendors or customers. So a glance, an external customer would appear a certain color, but internal employees or departments would be another color. This might be more efficient than a different color for every single customer.

Respect meeting times

  • DO:  include a “Hard Stop” message in the notes of your meeting requests. This will let everyone know that the end-time is more than just a suggestion.
  • DO:  If a meeting is hitting a hard stop and people are not moving to leave, prepare with a co-worker to ring into the conference room phone number or video system. This has the effect of startling the non-movers and they’ll think the next conference call is ringing in. This trick will clear the room quickly.

Print the Calendar

  • DO: If you have a busy day ahead outside of your office, a printed copy of the calendar can save frustration. An at-a-glance printed calendar might save an embarrassing collision.

Edit the meeting subject line for clarity – if you’re the recipient

NOTE: When a meeting request is updated by the Sender, the subject and time will change for everyone involved. But - when updated by the Recipient/Attendee, it will only update the Recipient’s calendar, and no one else.

  • DO: This is a good feature because you can safely add details to the subject line. For instance, use brackets as your signal that it is your own note: [Customer wants a discount] No one else invited to the meeting will see the altered subject line of your calendar.

Make use of the event area to protect those dates

  • DO: Post your travel days in the Event area, mark it as busy so no one else can schedule you. But you or your assistant can still schedule specific details on those days.
  • DO: Post team member or co-worker vacation days as events, mark it as free/available, so you’re not wasting time looking for Bill when he is out on vacation.
  • DO: Post future events as placeholders, i.e. board meeting dates three months in advance.

Tips for busy travelers and their assistants

  • Enter the legs of the trips individually, thereby leaving the layover gaps open. This will allow for conference call meetings between flight legs.
  • If a flight is delayed or canceled, since the legs are scheduled separately on the calendar, you’ll know at a glance whether you have to re-book the entire trip or just one leg of the trip.
  • Separately schedule the driving time to the airport and meeting location.
  • Separately schedule time to clear security at the airport.
  • Separately schedule the car rental pick-up and return time, and include the address in the appointment details, for hotels, too!
Login to download
  • 00:05 Let's talk about printing a calendar and then some best practices for
  • 00:08 your calendar.
  • 00:10 Why would you print a calendar?
  • 00:11 Because paper's kind of great if you're really busy,
  • 00:14 if you have multiple buildings to get to just to take a piece of paper with you.
  • 00:18 If you're traveling, same story.
  • 00:20 So, how do I print this?
  • 00:21 Ctrl + P is a universal code to print.
  • 00:24 Now, I could come up here to File, and come down here to Print.
  • 00:30 Yes, I could do that.
  • 00:32 I'm going to get out of that.
  • 00:34 Now, just looking at my calendar, Ctrl + P takes me to Print.
  • 00:37 Same thing, but much faster.
  • 00:40 Now when i:m on the print is showing me weekly calendar style.
  • 00:43 Well, daily style, weekly agenda, weekly calendar, monthly.
  • 00:49 Tri-fold, very cool.
  • 00:50 Like this one a lot.
  • 00:52 Calendar details.
  • 00:54 I just want to print the day for my travel, so Daily Style.
  • 00:57 But where is the travel day?
  • 01:00 Take a look at the bottom.
  • 01:01 We have Day 1 of 7.
  • 01:03 It's actually Page 1 of 7, but it's calendar pages, 7 days.
  • 01:07 So I'll just hit next, next, next.
  • 01:12 And there's my travel day.
  • 01:14 Come up here, hit Print.
  • 01:15 And we're done.
  • 01:18 Talk about some best practices.
  • 01:20 Print a hard copy of the calendar.
  • 01:22 Good tips for calendar management.
  • 01:25 Okay, instructions to print, just like I showed you, but
  • 01:28 now this is all in the reference guide.
  • 01:29 If you want to print that off, keep it.
  • 01:33 Block time before and after meetings.
  • 01:36 So consider transportation time to an appointment.
  • 01:39 Whether it's walking to another building on-site or a taxi, Uber, driving time.
  • 01:44 Always allow a leeway window between meetings.
  • 01:46 So it's for extra hashing out of the topic after the meeting, or
  • 01:49 just a bathroom break between meetings.
  • 01:53 Color code. Don't go too nuts about color
  • 01:54 coding the calendar.
  • 01:55 Everything on the calendar has to be a different color.
  • 01:58 That could be more confusing as no color at all.
  • 02:01 So maybe, an idea, if you have a lot of external meetings,
  • 02:04 all externals are green.
  • 02:06 If it's internal meetings, those are blue.
  • 02:08 If it's department meetings, those might be orange.
  • 02:11 That might add some clarity to color by topic rather than individual customer.
  • 02:16 Always respect meeting times.
  • 02:18 Include a Hard Stop message in the notes of your meeting requests.
  • 02:21 This lets everyone know that the end-time is more than just a suggestion.
  • 02:24 And if a meeting is hitting the hard stop and people are not moving to leave,
  • 02:28 pre-prep with a co-worker to bring into the conference room or
  • 02:30 the phone number to the video system.
  • 02:32 This has the effect of startling the non-movers, and
  • 02:35 they'll think the next conference call is ringing in.
  • 02:38 This trick will clear the room quickly.
  • 02:40 Print your calendar.
  • 02:41 If you have a busy day ahead outside of your office, a printed calendar or
  • 02:44 an at-a-glance calendar might save an embarrassing collision if you're looking
  • 02:47 at your phone while you're walking.
  • 02:49 Edit the meeting subject line for clarity if you're the recipient.
  • 02:54 When a meeting request is updated by the sender, the subject line and
  • 02:57 time will cascade for everyone involved.
  • 03:00 But if you're the recipient, the subject line is yours.
  • 03:03 You can edit it, no one else will see that.
  • 03:05 So this is a good feature, because you can add details to your subject line.
  • 03:09 And a good idea for that is if it's your note, wrap your note with brackets.
  • 03:14 So as you're glancing at a subject line of a meeting, if you see brackets,
  • 03:18 you'll just know, I typed that note.
  • 03:20 The customer wants a discount, okay.
  • 03:24 Make use of the Event area on top of your calendar, because that'll protect the days
  • 03:28 from someone else trying to schedule you on those days.
  • 03:31 Post team member, co-worker vacation days as events.
  • 03:34 Mark it as free and available so it's not blocked for
  • 03:36 you to schedule your own calendar.
  • 03:38 But then you're not wasting time looking for Bill if he's on a vacation,
  • 03:41 because you made a mention of it on your own calendar.
  • 03:44 Post future events as placeholders,
  • 03:45 like board meeting dates three months in advance.
  • 03:49 Okay, tips for busy travelers.
  • 03:51 Enter the lengths of the trips individually so
  • 03:54 you'll leave the layover gaps open.
  • 03:56 This will allow for conference calls for your traveler between the flight legs.
  • 04:01 For flights delayed or
  • 04:02 cancelled, since the legs are scheduled separately on the calendar, you'll know at
  • 04:05 a glance whether you have to re-book the entire trip or just one leg of the trip.
  • 04:10 Separately schedule the driving time to the airport and to the meeting location.
  • 04:14 Separately schedule time to get through security, and
  • 04:16 separately schedule car rental pickup and return time.
  • 04:20 Those are just some tips I've gleaned over the years.
  • 04:22 So back at the calendar, this is how it lays out.
  • 04:25 You see, at a glance,
  • 04:26 the traveler knows the gaps in the day when they can take a break or make a call.
  • 04:31 All right, happy scheduling.

Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.

Gift this course