Episode 116: Who's in Charge, You or Your Calendar?

Welcome to another edition of "Around with Randall" your weekly podcast for making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett.

I'm always appreciative for you, anyone, joining me, Randall, here on "Around with Randall" our podcast to talk about how to make your world, the non-profit world, work world, better. Today we're going to get into the nuances and tactical effects of efficiency and productivity. We may have mentioned the highlights of today's thoughts, and hopefully tactical suggestions in a previous one or two podcasts, but we're going to do a deep dive today. And the question we're asking ourselves hopefully, as you listen to this, and maybe think about your life professionally, maybe even personally. Does your calendar control you or do you control your calendar?

I'm having more and more discussions with clients and professionals about how cluttered their world, professional world is and how it's tougher to be productive and efficient. And there are things popping in that are hindering the ability for them, their department, the foundation, whoever, to be successful at the level that they hope and dream of. And that brings me to today's conversation. So let's start with why this is an issue. There's kind of two, maybe two-and-a-half, concepts or effects that are really compromising our ability to be efficient and effective when it comes to calendaring.

So the first is what I call, and this is more recent, the zoom effect. That as we have learned from the pandemic and at the time with absolute necessity that we can do a lot of meetings via Zoom, and that's changed the way in which our offices work. Many organizations have gone to either a remote or a semi-remote process where we utilize Zoom as the conduit for interaction, whether that's a productive interaction or sometimes unproductive interaction. As a result what we've got is a lot more meetings because we don't see each other in the hallway. We don't catch up. We don't hear the latest and greatest. And in fact, I'm running into this more and more often where we have a meeting and it's like, well I would have heard that if you think about it walk into the water cooler, getting it getting some water, or just popping my head into someone's office where you might do it for five minutes. But all of a sudden we're scheduling a 30, 45, or 60 Minute Zoom meeting. The zoom effect, in my humble opinion, is it's put a lot more pressure on our calendars for more meetings.

The second piece of this, which is just truly the implementation of Zoom, is it's easy with teams or whenever to put meetings on your calendar and you're not even sure you approve them because all of a sudden people have a way to schedule into your time frames, which we're going to talk about, tactically, about how to control that a little bit. So you may look at your day and go, I don't even know what that meeting's about or I don't even know how I got invited to that meeting. And as a result, our schedules have become much more cluttered. The second thing is that during crisis we tend to look for more social interaction because it gives us a sense of concept that we are not alone. If you think about times in your life when things have been challenging, while there's always in to steal from my time with the Jesuits a value in thinking and working through the challenge or issue in discernment or reflection that only lasts for so long, there is when things are challenging, a sense of relief that others are going through it too, that you get to talk about, that you maybe think of, solutions.

So we have the pandemic. That certainly caused an immense amount of stress in nonprofits, but also in the for-profit world in terms of business. We have inflation. If you're in healthcare there's some financial challenges, and concerns that are are incredibly valid, education is kind of shaping into those. We have a lot of moving pieces and sometimes we seek interaction to make ourselves feel better. It's emotional, and so since we're not in offices quite as much. We Zoom or team or whatever you choose to use. So this is complicated. The ability for us to be effective and efficient, the things that are really being measured or need to be done because it's a social support system.

The third, which is really a half because it's not necessarily new today. Any organization I've been doing this for 25 years since I got out of law school back in 1997, is the creeping meeting syndrome. This is not new. I think it was probably true before we had computers, is that we just seem to acquire more and more meetings over time. I'm sure there's a psychology to that. There's a power dynamic and people want to know what's going on, or there's just a fitting in dynamic. And I want to be a part of the group. It's about information control and communication, but I have realized that no matter the mechanism in calendaring, whether you we use the Franklin calendaring system which if you're young enough you're like I've never heard of that, where it was a a hard paper calendar and there were other mechanisms like that which I carried around, to the Palm Pilot first time kind of electronically we could keep it to where we're now syncing our phone to our Outlook or Google Calendar, creeping meetings I think has been consistent. And so when we look at that kind of as a half piece, but Zoom effect, that it's easier, and chaos that we're more likely all of a sudden we're having more meetings.

That's the rationale as to why the philosophical as to why you want to control. This is to me a two-prong argument and then we'll get into the Tactical. Number one, if you know me you've heard me say this before and I've always believed this. I really don't believe in time management. Time management to me indicates you're trying to manage your hours. Here's the thing, I have 24 hours in my day and so do you. The question isn't time. The question is priority and so I've always spoken about it from controlling your priorities and putting them in order, which we'll get to in a second. The priority management is allocating your your most important resource, your time. And your second most important resource, your talent to maximize output, how do I get my job done. And that time is consistent for all of us. It's how you use it because it's a resource, it's a infinite, or it's defined or limited resource, 24 hours a day, sleep, eat, family. But it's a resource. The reason, but priority management is important is because it gives you four outcomes.

The personal. Number one it reduces stress when you're able to plan your different aspects of your life, the things that need to get done, the to-do lists. You actually reduce your stress and scheduling time to do those is critical. Keeping a list is wonderful, and I have as you've all probably heard me say, I have two. One that's personal/ business and the second is business development. And I'm constantly going back and forth and it's easy for me to keep them separate that way. But if I don't allocate time to those particular needs they just grow and it adds stress. I'm not getting stuff done. Number two is, it helps create balance. Over the last two years I have built an arsenal, a cadre, a database, you can call whatever you want of all of the things that I do.

Professionally timelines, checklists, presentations, collateral material for a grateful patient, for campaign, for feasibility, for coaching, for major gift training. It's been a two-year build and my balance has been off, but by using my calendaring and priority process system I'm beginning to put more pressure on myself to spend more time at home. I needed to do that for two years. That's my professional Journey. But now it's there. How do I begin to reallocate those priorities? So reducing stress and creating balance are two effects, outcomes of taking control of your calendar. On the professional side it does two things that are going to make you feel good. Number one it's going to increase your productivity. It prioritizes back to time management versus priority management. It prioritizes the things that are the most important, the things that get measured, things that need to get done because we're controlling what our efforts are going to be inside of our day. By the way, this could apply to your personal life as well if you do that, you feel a sense of accomplishment because you get done with what was important, what your evaluated on what you evaluate yourself on.

Priority management and utilizing your calendar is critically important because it takes, helps, I'm not sure it takes care of but it helps the personal and the professional reducing stress. Balance of life professionally about accomplishment through productivity, and doing that gives you immense control on your life. The other thing I'll note before getting into the tactical is that what you realize if you do it correctly is that, and I don't know Google calendaring very well, I'm more of an Outlook person, I've always used that. But I think they do very much similar things, color coding and pre-scheduling and repetitive meetings and all the things that the technology allows you to do. You should use.

And that kind of brings us to our tactical. In the next six minutes or so, what are some tactical recommendations I can make to help you control your calendar to increase your personal kind of value and how you feel about yourself, reducing stress and the time you spend on the other things besides work. And also inside work creating productivity so you feel more sense of accomplishment. So tactical. Number one, every week, every month, every day it doesn't make a difference, you need to prioritize what are the most important things and almost keep a list from a topical perspective of what's most important. I talk about this with gift officers in particular about what are the things they need to schedule the most and it depends on the kind of the sector. What I talk about as the most important thing to schedule professionally particularly in health care is meetings with clinicians because they're your referral base. It's not that it's actually the most important piece of their professional life but it's the most stressful in terms of scheduling because clinicians, particularly doctors, won't give you a lot of time and when they say I'll meet with you on a regular basis at 7am on the third Monday of the month you don't have any options. And so sometimes prioritization is about availability. Prioritize the things that are most important. If you're in finance it may be reviewing the finances. It may be meetings about bringing those finances together for gift officers. It's about getting out of the office and making phone calls and going to see people you will be able to figure out, and you might want to do this as an exercise. What are the five topically, the five most important things I need to be doing every week. Tape it to your desk or put it under the glass and then prioritize yourself by scheduling those things out for the week or for the month. And do it repetitively like a routine.

I would also be remiss if I didn't say you also should schedule personal. My son here recently because we missed a day because of a storm at the end of the second semester or second quarter, before Christmas missed a day or he didn't miss the old school the school district was canceled and they missed finishing their gingerbread houses. it was important to him. The nine-year-old said Dad I'd like you to come help me. I put it on my calendar way out ahead so that when things began to creep up I could say nope this is a priority. And there was somebody who wanted that time and I told them you know I've got something going I really didn't even get into detail but if I had they would have also supported me. What are the things you need to schedule out? I scheduled my vacation six to nine months out, a year out, so that they are blocked. I schedule days before and after I leave and come back to ensure I have a chance to get set up for that vacation and come back and kind of bring myself back into the work world. That's about balance. Find a way to put the important things in your calendar down the road.

Number two is build your no response. It's okay to say I can't meet or I don't need to meet. I've had a couple requests for time on my calendar from associations I belong to, more for business purposes. And they're asking, well we'd like to talk. You know, I'm just not available. I've got a couple of nonprofit boards that have come to me and said we really would like you on the board. It's not that I don't love their organization, believe in their mission. I do. We're, my wife and I are donors to them, what they do is incredible. But what I, when they asked I saw my calendar and I built my no response and said it's not the right time because it's the time, that asset, that resource you're gonna pull from me, I really can't afford. And by the way I'm not going to be very good at it because I'm not going to dedicate the time necessary. Build your no response. Be willing to say no to things.

Number three, schedule the other. Schedule the fun. Schedule the mundane. Schedule the travel. What are those three things? Number one is the fun. Go out to lunch with colleagues. Have a cup of coffee. Schedule that. It's worth it from a social interaction, holistic, humanistic perspective. Schedule time for fun. I would also argue fun depending on your perspective. I'm pushing myself to schedule time to go take a walk because number one is good for my health but number two it's good for my mental health. I need to get out of my office. What is it that you do that makes you whole?

Mundane in our world particularly if you're a non-profit a fundraiser, schedule CRM time. Schedule the things you don't really want to do because it'll force you to do them. And finally the travel. If you are out in the on the road I.E or leaving the office, driving somewhere, maybe you're commuting, maybe it's during the day. utilize that as a double time. I'm driving and I can have a phone call. I can't do a zoom but I might have a phone call. Maybe I can catch up with someone, maybe I just want to check in with someone. Maybe I can join a meeting via audio, utilize travel time to your advantage, and maybe that's your fun time. There are times a while ago, no I'm gonna listen to a podcast because I need a break, but schedule yourself or think about how you use that travel time more efficiently. It might be as simple as just I'm just, I'm gonna call Mom and Dad or my sisters.

Build. Number four, build the boundaries of two things. Number one your availability and number two the length of meanings. Your availability should be based on when you, depending on other people's schedules as well, but you can help guide that based on when it's convenient for you and I don't mean convenient like oh I'm awake and I just probably got to the office, I have other priorities. I use a tool called calendly that allows people, clients, others to schedule right into my calendar but it's prerequisite is that I'm out a month or two blocking time for various things, or at least a week or two. Travel on sites, other meetings, board meetings, client delivery, things but calendly allows a whole lot of people to access my calendar but the times are blocked. When I've blocked them so if you do the prioritization you block time for the things you need, then you can have people schedule into your calendar and like Outlook and Google do this automatically, but if you're outside the organization calendly or something like it can be effective.

The other is the length of meetings. We tend to let meetings go too long. I think about when I went to college my dad gave me a great piece of advice. It was a calendaring thing but without you know because it was so long ago we barely had paper some people might say with all my gray hair but what he taught me was if you'll get up at eight in the morning or 7:45 and by 8:15 unless you have a class at eight out of the dorm, out of the fraternity house, out of the apartment, and you're on campus. And you don't go back till five. So you only have three places you can go. You can get food, you go to the library, go to class. You'll never have homework and you'll always be ahead of us, ahead of time, and you'll never have anything to do at night other than just review particularly before a test. I lived that. it was the greatest advice in the world. It was prioritization, calendaring. Eight to five I'm in school to be very efficient. The same is true of meeting availability. The same is true of length of meetings. Do you really need an hour to do something you can do in 30 minutes? And by the way a very tactful thing build into your Outlook calendar that meetings are actually 25 minutes and 50 minutes to give yourself five or ten minute break to go down the hallway to answer an email, to make a quick phone call home. Do you need all that time? Do we just schedule time for time's sake or do we challenge ourselves and say we got to get this done in 25 minutes? The more you push yourself the better off you're going to be.

The last couple are just real quick. I advocate very heavily every night look at your calendar before the next day. Every Sunday look at your calendar for the next week. What does it look like? Where are the holes? Did stuff get prioritized? What can you do for tomorrow or next week in that moment to help yourself so you don't get behind? It's a simple thing. It's one of the last things I do every night. What am I doing tomorrow? What am I doing next week? What does this week look like? So that I have a little bit of understanding and control.

The last is, if all else fails and I did this with my staff and meetings get too long, if you're looking and you have enough authority or power, do what's called a standing meeting. But standing isn't defined maybe the way you're thinking. Standing is not meaning we have at the same time every week, standing is nobody sits down. You want to shorten meetings don't let people sit down. I did this with my gift officers very regularly on Monday mornings and boy those meanings got short. Nobody leaned including me. Nobody sat. People's legs get tired. You'd be surprised all the other stuff gets out of the way so people can go back and sit down. To try a standing meeting as a part of this process, controlling your calendar, can create immense efficiency and effectiveness for you, but also reduce your stress, and creeping ISM, and zoom, and all these other time frames have put a lot of pressure on us. We just need to find a better way to own our time because it is yours. It belongs to you, and you have more control of it than you think. Not all of it. Boss calls a meeting, you gotta go. But you can control a lot of what you do by saying no, and by building in other time, and by prioritizing what's most important, and really setting boundaries. And you'll find yourself much more effective and happy.

Don't forget the the blogs at HallettPhilanthropy.com, two three a week, 90 second reads. Just something to challenge your mindset with or thought process with. And if you want to get a hold of me email me at podcast@hallettphilanthropy.com. Don't forget you're part of something really important. Nonprofit work's needed more now than ever. Things are getting more challenging. The work that you do, the work that we do is critical to make a difference for those in our community. There are three kinds of people: those who make things happen, those who wonder what happened, and then there are those who are wondering or watch what happened, then those who wondered what happened. Nonprofit work's about being someone who makes things happen, partnering with those who make things happen for the people and things we believe in our community who are just wondering what happened, and that's incredible value, each and every day, a little bit longer today. My apologies. We'll get it back under 20 next time. But I appreciate your time nevertheless, time I took a little extra but I'm under 30 and you got five minutes to go down the hallway if you've been watching. We'll talk to you next time right back here on "Around with Randall" and don't forget make it a great day.