by LAWPRO

limitations-claims

Nobody teaches calendaring in law school, but it’s a key skill. Diarizing deadlines is a must-have skill. This week, here are some basic tips to manage calendaring.

Use One Calendar

This may sound obvious, but only use one calendar for your practice. Different practice management tools may all have calendars. Best practice is to make sure that your team and you are only using one of them. By only using one calendar, you reduce the risk of calendar information being inputted into the wrong calendar or other errors from occurring.

Keep Your Calendaring Consistent

There’s no one right way to calendar. It doesn’t matter what calendar system you use (ex: Outlook, Google Calendar etc.) But keep your calendaring practice consistent. You can use colors to show different calendar events, or not. The key is to be consistent and for colleagues to be on the same page.

Calendar Access – Protocols and Respect

Develop protocols or a shared understanding around calendar access. Some people make access to their calendars availability open to prospective clients online through tools such as Calendly. Others make calendar access private to staff, or only to certain staff such as their own assistant. Whatever the preference, it needs to be understood so key meetings can be scheduled and so nothing is missed along the way.

Regardless of the protocol, it’s also important to respect others’ time. When considering whether to book someone into a meeting or other event, don’t just check their availability, but where possible, check what’s on either side of the commitment. Avoid squeezing meetings in unless there are no alternatives. Try to make sure that there’s a breather period between commitments, in case that prior commitment runs long, or potentially running long into the person’s next calendar commitment. And don’t double book.

Make the Most out of Calendaring Tools

Tools such as Doodle and Calendly simplify calendar management and are great time savers. You can use these and similar calendar tools to poll meeting participants for availability, and to have clients and others book meetings directly.

Next week we’ll focus on teamwork and time management, including how to get the most out of meetings. Subscribe to the avoidaclaim.com blog to have the post emailed right to you. Got a question? Reach out to [email protected].

Categories: Limitations Claims