Printing and Calendar Best Practices

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How to print a hard copy of the calendar and good tips for calendar management.

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2016, 2019/365.

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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 travellers.

Instructions to Print a Calendar

  1. Open the calendar and change the view to Month, Week or Day
  2. Press “Ctrl P” and the print screen will open
  3. Click Print

Calendar Best Practices

Time Before and After Meetings

DO: Consider travel time to the appointment, whether it is air travel, driving, or just walking to another building on campus.

DO: Allow a leeway window after and between meetings, whether it is leeway for extra hashing of the topic, or just to get to the bathroom between meetings.

Color Coding

Don’t: Color code too much of your calendar or your boss’ calendar (if you maintain his/her calendar).  Too much color can be just as inefficient as no color at all.

DO: Select a Color code for external meetings, like vendors or customers.  So at-a-glance an external customer would appear a certain color, but internal employee or departments would be another color.

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 not just a suggestion.

DO: If a meeting is hitting the hard stop and people are not moving to leave, have an assistant or co-worker ready to ring into the conference room phone number. This has the effect of startling the attendees and they’ll think the next conference call is ringing in. They will scatter quickly.

Print the Calendar

DO: If you have a busy day ahead, a printed copy of the Calendar can be a life-saver and frustration saver.

Edit the Subject line for clarity

DO: A meeting-request subject or time, when updated by the Sender, will change the meeting for everyone invited. BUT - when updated by the Receiver will only update the Receiver’s calendar and no one else’s. 
       This is useful to add details to the subject line, for instance, use brackets as the signal that it is your own note: [Joe, Bill, Sarah] or [Customer wants a discount]

Make Use of the Event area

DO: Post team member or co-worker vacation days as events 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 3 months in advance

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 specifics for the day.

 

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 to the 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.
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  • 00:04 In this lesson I'd like to talk to you about how to print a calendar, and
  • 00:08 also calendar best practices.
  • 00:09 First of all, if you have a busy traveler, it's so
  • 00:12 nice just to have a piece of paper with them,
  • 00:14 in case they can't log in wherever they may be, at the airport or on a plane.
  • 00:18 So if I press Ctrl+P for print on my keyboard,
  • 00:22 it comes up with the weekly schedule cuz I was on the weekly view.
  • 00:26 But what if I just want a certain day?
  • 00:27 I just click the daily style and it happens to show me today's date.
  • 00:32 Well I want a specific day.
  • 00:33 So I'm gonna go back, I'm gonna click on the day I want and
  • 00:37 on my home ribbon, I'm going to choose the day view.
  • 00:41 When I click the day view and
  • 00:42 now press Ctrl+P, I get exactly the day I wanted to print off.
  • 00:47 It's an amazing little feature, just so you know it's available in there.
  • 00:50 And sometimes paper is just really nice to have along.
  • 00:54 All right, lets talk about calendar best practices.
  • 00:57 On this particular screen I've already typed us in calendar do's and dont's,
  • 01:01 you will see this on the cheat sheet as well.
  • 01:03 So do consider travel time to the appointment, whether it's air travel,
  • 01:07 driving or just walking to another building.
  • 01:10 Allow a leeway window after and between meetings, whether it's a leeway for
  • 01:14 extra hashing of the topic or just getting to the bathroom between the meetings.
  • 01:18 Now color coding, although it is wonderful, color coding too much of your
  • 01:21 calendar or your boss' calendar can be just as inefficient as no color at all.
  • 01:26 Also, selecting a color code for external meetings like vendors customers, so
  • 01:31 at a glance an external customer would appear a certain color, but
  • 01:33 internal employee or departments would be a different color.
  • 01:36 That might be more convenient than choosing a color for
  • 01:38 every different customer.
  • 01:40 Respect meeting times.
  • 01:42 Include a hard stop message in the notes of your meeting requests.
  • 01:46 This will let everyone know that the end time is not just a suggestion.
  • 01:50 And if a meeting is hitting the hard spot and people aren't moving to leave,
  • 01:54 have an assistant or coworker ready to ring the conference room phone number.
  • 01:58 This has the effect of startling the attendees and
  • 02:01 they'll think the next conference call is ringing in and they will scatter.
  • 02:05 Print the calendar, which I already showed you.
  • 02:07 Just nice to have a piece of paper.
  • 02:09 Edit the subject line for clarity.
  • 02:12 When a meeting requests subject or time, when it's updated by the sender,
  • 02:17 it'll change everyone's calendar that was invited.
  • 02:20 But when updated by the receiver,
  • 02:24 only the receiver's calendar will change and no one else's.
  • 02:27 So this is useful to add detail to the subject line.
  • 02:30 For example, use brackets as a signal that it's your own note.
  • 02:33 So you can put in brackets who's attending instead of double-clicking to open up and
  • 02:37 see who was invited.
  • 02:38 Just put in brackets.
  • 02:39 This is who's attending, or the customer wants a discount.
  • 02:42 Topic of the meeting, so just so you know that little tip.
  • 02:46 Make use of the event area, post team member or
  • 02:48 co-worker vacation days on the events, so you're not wasting time looking for
  • 02:52 Bill when he's out on vacation.
  • 02:54 And post future events as placeholders, for
  • 02:56 instance the board meeting dates three months in advance.
  • 03:00 Post travel days in the event area, mark them as busy so no one can schedule you,
  • 03:04 but you and your assistant can still schedule specifics for the day.
  • 03:08 Some of those specifics for busy travel might be enter the legs of the trips
  • 03:12 individually, thereby you'll be leaving the layover gaps open.
  • 03:16 This will allow for conference call meetings between flight legs.
  • 03:19 And if a flight is delayed or cancelled, since the legs were scheduled separately,
  • 03:22 you'll know at a glance whether you have to rebook the entire trip or
  • 03:25 just one leg of the trip.
  • 03:27 Separately schedule the driving time to the airport and to the meeting locations.
  • 03:31 Separately schedule the time to clear security at the airport.
  • 03:34 And separately schedule the car rental pick up and
  • 03:36 return time and include the address in the appointment.
  • 03:39 All these items will make your schedule more efficient and
  • 03:43 your boss's schedule more efficient.
  • 03:45 I can't stress enough how great it is
  • 03:48 to have an efficient calendar because it helps you instead of hinders you.
  • 03:53 All right please take these best practices into account when you're
  • 03:55 working on your calendar.

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