A well-organized calendar is an imperative part of everyone's lives these days. And the mainstream calendar tool is still Outlook because it works seamlessly with your email, tasks, and your contacts.
I put together my list of the Top 3 Tips for Time Management when using the Outlook Calendar.
1) Categories - Outlook allows you to organize using categories which will color-code the various types of appointments on your calendar. Simply click on the "Categories" button in the Calendar Ribbon and select a category.
You can also customize your categories by clicking the "All Categories" menu item and setting up your own specific categories.
2) Multiple Time Zones - This one is particularly useful in today's global economy. I personally work with associates in almost every time zone, but most work East Coast hours. I, however, work Arizona hours - if you're not familiar, most of Arizona does NOT do Daylight Savings, so when the rest of the country changes their clocks twice per year, we do NOT. This makes it even more confusing than just always knowing that we're 3 hours earlier than the East Coast.
So, I setup a 2nd Time Zone to show on my calendar. To do this, click on the File Tab and go to Options. Click on Calendar from the left menu. Scroll to the Time Zones section. Notice there is already one defaulted with no name - click in the Label field and give your current time zone a name. I personally just labeled mine as "AZ" for Arizona.
Next, click the "Show a second time zone" checkbox. Label it according to the time zone you'd like. I named mine "ET" for East Coast Time. Then, click the Time zone drop-down to select the appropriate time zone. Click the OK button at the bottom of the window.
When you return to your Calendar, you'll now see a 2nd column to the left of your calendar, showing the 2nd time zone you setup. This makes it so much easier when trying to confirm a specific time with a co-worker who is in another time zone.
3) Viewing Date Availability - This easy little shortcut allows you to quickly see multiple day options for scheduling meetings with others. Have you ever been on the phone and someone asks when you are available, only to provide you with 2 or 3 specific dates? Well, instead of scrolling thru your calendar to see those dates, you can use the CTRL key to click on each of the dates the other person has available using the left mini-calendar.
This has saved me so much time from scrolling thru dates to determine the best time for both parties.
There are many other time saving tips for Outlook, but when it comes to Time Management, I really feel like these are the Top 3 Tips that help me manage my time using Outlook.
If you're interested in learning how to use Outlook for Time & Task Management, I'm offering a FREE mini-course to help everyone get started on the right foot for 2020!
