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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.docx79.6 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 travellers.
Instructions to print a calendar
- Open the calendar and change the view to Month, Week or Day.
- Press “Ctrl P” and the print screen will open.
- Click Print and select the settings style you prefer.
Calendar best practices
Schedule the time before and after meetings or travel
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. This might be more efficient than a different color for every 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 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 quickly scatter.
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
NOTE: When a meeting request is updated by the Sender, the subject or time will change the meeting for everyone invited. 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 the signal that it is your own note: [Joe, Bill, Sarah] or [Customer wants a discount].
No one else invited to the meeting will see the notes you typed on the meeting subject line of your calendar.
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 those 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 details, for hotels, too!
- 00:04 All right, the calendar has to be printed at some point, and I do want to cover
- 00:08 some calendar best practices that I have gleaned over the years.
- 00:11 First of all, let's go ahead and print this with the famous Ctrl+P for print.
- 00:15 Ctrl+P will show you your weekly style, your weekly agenda, a daily style,
- 00:21 but I had some information on a Wednesday that I wanted to see and
- 00:25 I can't get to that here.
- 00:27 Weekly calendar, monthly calendar, I guess I could under my Print options kind of
- 00:31 make this be the day I want but it's easier to do this another way.
- 00:34 I'm going to hit Cancel, I'm going to go back to my printer.
- 00:37 I'm going to actually select that day that I'm travelling, and
- 00:40 I'm going to hit the Day view, the single Day view.
- 00:43 Now watch when I print.
- 00:45 Now I will get the entire day printed.
- 00:47 All right, and I could just hit Print and
- 00:49 hand that to whoever is going off on their travels.
- 00:51 And they have a nice schedule in case they can't log in or
- 00:54 can't get a phone connection, or something happens,
- 00:57 they have a nice printed entire itinerary on their calendar.
- 01:00 All right, let's go back, I want to talk to you about calendar best practices that
- 01:04 will explain why I have broken up this travel the way it looks on the screen,
- 01:08 drive to the airport, go through the security.
- 01:10 Here's the first leg here's the second leg.
- 01:12 Notice those gaps in between, that allows my traveler to know what he or
- 01:16 she can stop and make a phone call.
- 01:18 All right, let's review some best practices,
- 01:21 this is already on the reference guide as well.
- 01:23 Schedule the time on the calendar before and after the meetings for travel.
- 01:27 Get your traveler going before they have to go in or in a panic.
- 01:31 So anyway, always consider the travel time to the appointment,
- 01:34 whether it's driving or even just walk into another building.
- 01:37 Get that travel time so no one can book them and
- 01:40 occupy their time when they need to be moving.
- 01:42 Okay, allow a leeway window after in-between meetings, gives them a break,
- 01:46 even if they have to rush to the bathroom, okay?
- 01:49 Or, we always have to stay afterwards and hash out the rest of the topic.
- 01:52 So give them leeway between meetings, don't back to back meetings all day long.
- 01:56 Color coding, don't color code too much of your calendar, or
- 02:00 your boss' calendar if you maintain someone else's calendar.
- 02:03 Too much color can be just as efficient as no color at all.
- 02:06 So select a color code for external meetings like vendors or customers.
- 02:11 So at a glance, maybe an external meeting, they're blue,
- 02:15 but internal meetings might be green.
- 02:17 This might be more efficient than a different color for
- 02:20 every single meeting topic or every single customer.
- 02:23 Okay, respect meeting time.
- 02:25 So in the actual details of meeting,
- 02:28 include a message about a hard stop at 3 PM in the notes.
- 02:32 This will let everyone know that the end time is not just a suggestion.
- 02:36 Now, if a meeting is going to hit a hard stop or
- 02:38 you know that there's people in there they always go beyond the meeting.
- 02:42 Have an assistant or
- 02:43 a co-worker ready to ring into the conference room phone number.
- 02:47 This has the effect of startling the attendees and
- 02:49 they'll think the next conference call is ringing in, they'll scatter quickly.
- 02:53 Take some setup time, but with practice you'll know who and
- 02:56 when you have to pull this trick on.
- 02:58 Okay, print the calendar.
- 03:00 If you have a busy day ahead, a printed copy of the calendar can be a life saver
- 03:04 and a frustration saver if you'e not at your desk a lot.
- 03:07 Take your printed calendar with you as you walk through your campus to other
- 03:11 meetings.
- 03:12 All right, this is a great tip here.
- 03:15 Edit the subject line for clarity.
- 03:16 So I have to preface this with a note.
- 03:18 When a meeting request is updated by the sender, the subject line will update, and
- 03:23 the time will update for everyone invited.
- 03:25 But when you want to update the subject line, no one else will know about it.
- 03:32 No one else will be updated that you made a change to the subject line.
- 03:35 This a good feature, okay?
- 03:37 Good feature.
- 03:38 Because you can safely add details to the subject line.
- 03:41 For instance, if we use brackets as your signal that it's your own note,
- 03:45 you can put brackets, okay, who's attending this, in brackets, or
- 03:49 Customer wants a discount in brackets.
- 03:51 So it's just kind of a little safety measure to know that if you've been
- 03:54 invited, go ahead and edit your subject line, no one's going to see your notes.
- 03:57 No one else invited will see the note you typed.
- 04:00 Okay, make use of the event area.
- 04:02 Post team member or coworker vacation days as events so
- 04:05 you're not wasting time looking for Bill when he's out on vacation.
- 04:09 Post future events as placeholders like board meetings three months in advance.
- 04:13 Post your travel days in the event area.
- 04:16 Mark it as busy so no one else can schedule you, but you or your assistant
- 04:20 can still schedule specifics for that date, like your travel legs.
- 04:24 Okay, here's the busy traveler part, enter the legs of the trips individually,
- 04:29 therefore leaving the layover gaps open.
- 04:31 This allows for conference calls between flight legs.
- 04:33 If a flight is delayed or cancelled,
- 04:35 since the legs are scheduled separately on the calendar, you'll know at
- 04:39 a glance whether you have to rebook the whole trip or just one leg of the trip.
- 04:43 Okay, separately schedule the driving time to the airport and
- 04:45 to the meeting location to get them moving on time.
- 04:48 Separately schedule time to clear security at the airport,
- 04:52 and separately schedule the car rental and pick up return dates.
- 04:56 And also with hotels, include the address in the appointment details.
- 05:00 You wouldn't believe how handy this is just to have that information at a glance
- 05:04 to tell the Uber driver.
- 05:06 All right, that's it for now.
- 05:07 We're going to be moving on to Contacts next, so stay with me.
- 05:11 Thanks.
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