Why Good Calendar Management is the Secret to Apprenticeship Success | by Ed Goodman
Career-starter apprentices often join from an environment of classroom studying or a role which is vastly different from the one they have applied for on their apprenticeship. In an instant, they have a lot to manage and plan, including assignment work, their learning, team tasks, meetings, coaching sessions, and more. For almost all those apprentices, this increased work and responsibility is an alien environment at first.
So, as each apprentice is the architect of their success, what do those who manage themselves well have that those who don’t...don’t? The answer is, so often, strong calendar management.
This means more than adding meetings you’re required to attend and what you need to achieve each day. Effective calendar management also allows you to:
- Reach goals faster
- Increase productivity
- Be accountable
- Know what spare capacity you have for new work or learning.
- Know that, if anything needs to be moved to allow for an urgent task, it can be done without the original plan being lost or forgotten. And,
- Allows you to plan your work that ensures deadlines are met.
- Reduce stress at work
This also has a great benefit for those who are supporting you at work too. For example:
- They can see what you’re working on and provide you with extra resources, to help, if needed.
- If they have another task for you to complete, they can check your capacity to take that work on. And,
- Support you if they find that the time, you’re spending on tasks is causing any issues for you or them.
A well-managed calendar ensures a strategic, efficient, and effective time allocation. Also, 76% of people said they would be prepared to spend between 15-30 minutes a day if better time management saved them 90 minutes, reduced stress and improved their reputation at work. This is the result of a study of 300 employees across a wide range of industries in the United States and the United Kingdom to uncover new time management statistics in 2022. *
This graph shows us how, for many of the employees surveyed, a to-do list is the most common “time-management technique”. Yet, in their answers, most didn’t believe that a to-do list could even be considered a time management tool. Do you?
A to-do list is a great start in planning each day and, if this is you, then a calendar would be a simple step-up as it’s a to-do list in date order.
I will admit that this wasn’t how I ran my calendar before I joined Multiverse. However, having learned the benefits, my calendar is now filled with reminders, deadlines, coffee chats, meetings, time off, and blocks of time for self-development, exercise, and other wellness activities necessary to aid my success. It’s even colour coded too, which allows me to instantly visualise priority tasks over others.
Start applying this technique instead: Plan your next working day with everything you’re doing and want to achieve. How are you meeting? What are you working on? And, most importantly for self-work, what do you want to achieve in that allotted time?
Are there any spaces in your diary?
If yes, how can you maximise your time? It could be that your Manager has a task that your time would be perfect. Maybe you could use this time to work on an apprentice assignment or objective. Is there a Multiverse Community event you can now sign up to as a result?
If not, have you allowed sufficient time for breaks? Do you have too much work to complete?
Now you have organised your calendar for tomorrow, you could try colour-coding it. e.g. one colour for self-development work and another for immovable meetings. Whatever works for you, as that has to be the case or there’s no point.
Here’s a before and after of how my calendar would look when I first joined Multiverse and how it is more likely to look now:
There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to good time management. As a colleague of mine suggested today, there are many ways to manage time and only one way to get it wrong. I haven’t measured this, but I think she might be right.
Find the way that works for you (which can often be through trial and error) and integrate it into your week. The wrong way? Do nothing and hope for the best.
Your time and attention are your most valuable resources, don’t let them go to waste.
What are your time management and calendar management tips? What works for you and how does it help you? If this isn’t a practice you undertake, why not?
* Time Management Statistics (New Research in 2022): https://www.timewatch.com/blog/time-management-statistics-in-2022/
Ed Goodman is a Digital Business Coach at Multiverse.