My 10 tips cover three important dimensions: Technology settings and strategies, our developing calendaring etiquette and norms, and broader organizational practices.

Technology settings and strategies

1. Set up appointment slots. Many systems (I’m most familar with Tungle.me and Google Calendar) let you choose the times others can book you.
2. Make your wishes known. Many systems let you add comments on the page where people would schedule you, so use those comments to share your preferences for scheduling meetings. On my scheduling page I ask that people request at least three options, across multiple days.
3. Set your default meeting time to a smaller increment. This great tip comes from Thursday Bram. I just changed my default meeting time to 15 minutes. She also challenges us to:
4. Schedule your own time so you can get some work done. My own technique is to schedule my required events (with prep, travel, and assimilation time added on), block time for work, and then negotiate the shared aspect of my calendar. You may not have that kind of control, but as you’ll see in the the organizational practices category of tips, you won’t have this kind of control unless you ask.
5. Check the other person’s schedule first. Before asking someone if you can book some time (see next tip below), search the system for times that might work. You’ll get an better idea of the how busy the person is and be ready to book using their technology of choice.

Etiquette and norms

6. Get an OK before you set the meeting. Don’t book someone else without prior correspondence, unless it is standard operating practice, or the person’s scheduling page says you can.
7. Offer multiple options. If your calendar system allows it, suggest a few different meeting times, spread across multiple days — you never know where the person will be and whether or not they’ll have access to a computer, good wifi, or whatever else the event might need.
8. Don’t schedule back-to-back events. The person will be more likely to be on time and have your agenda in mind if you give them some breathing room. Try and schedule for an “odd” time so others are less likely to schedule immediately before or after your meeting.

Organizational practices

9. Talk about calendering and meeting ideals. Come to agreement around norms for booking each other, how personal time can be blocked, and assumptions about meetings. Agree on when it’s ok to say no to a meeting.
10. Enlist IT’s help. See if your information technology gurus can adjust the calendaring system to defaults of 15, 25, or 55 minutes, to help shorten meetings (or at least allow 5 minutes’ breathing room between them). If this isn’t a standard setting, see if IT can ask the vendor to implement it as a new feature.

Certainly, we’ve had shared calendars inside organizations for years. That doesn’t mean we’ve done calendaring well or that we’re prepared for public calendar sharing.

Would be great to know how these tips have worked out for you. Please share other tips you’ve found to be valuable.

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To use Tom’s Planner on an iOS device, no app is required; just load up the Tom’s Planner website in mobile Safari. Tasks can be scheduled by dragging and dropping on the chart, while accessing the context menu items is achieved by a “long click” (tapping and holding for longer than a second). I’ve tried it out on my iPhone and it works pretty well, although the small screen makes it quite fiddly, and the long click does take a bit of getting used to. I’m sure it’s much easier to use in the iPad’s larger screen, though. Android support is apparently also in the works.

The ability to import Excel and MS Project files should be useful for teams who aren’t starting a project from scratch, and could be especially handy for users who occasionally get emailed a Project file but don’t have it installed themselves.

Despite facing some serious competition in the simple online collaborative planning tools market from the likes of Ganttic (reviewed here) and Microproject (reviewed here), Tom’s Planner is still my favorite. While it doesn’t have all the advanced features offered by its competitors, it’s well-designed and simple, which makes it really easy to use, even for complete project management novices.

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I’ve heard mounting complaints about the Google-centric focus of web workers from those using other scheduling tools, but the fact is that the plethora of tools designed to make scheduling easy can actually make it more difficult if basic scheduling etiquette isn’t adhered to. Are you guilty of these scheduling faux pas?

1. Assuming your contacts use your calendar of choice.

Before you start setting meetings in your calendar and using its invitation function to invite others, make sure that the invitations will display correctly for users who aren’t using your calendar of choice.

When I send Google Calendar invitations to some of my contacts, the emails they receive contain no information. Many email users are stuck with clients that can render your invitation emails unusable, if not unreadable. Many calendar tools are flaky, at best, when it comes to reliably displaying in all email clients.

If you’re not sure what calendar tool your contact uses, IM them or send them a quick email ahead of the invitation, so that they know your invitation is coming and can let you know if it doesn’t display properly for them.

2. Giving contacts access to your calendar without forewarning them.

A couple of months ago, I received an email from a contact using Google Calendar to alert me to the fact that I’d been given access to a particular calendar of theirs. The calendar was related to their work, but not directly related to the work I was doing for them.

Why had they given me access? I had no idea. I expected I’d soon receive an email explaining the situation … but I didn’t. I resolved to ask the contact next time I saw then, but forgot. More than two months have passed and I still don’t know why I have access to this calendar. Was it a mistake? Was I supposed to do something with this information? Don’t leave your contacts wondering what in heck you’re doing when you share your calendar with them.

Before you give contacts calendar access, send them a courtesy email to tell them what you’re doing, and why. Ask if they know how to use shared calendars. And after you’ve given them access, check back with them to make sure they know what they’re supposed to do with the information you’re giving them.

3. Inviting contacts to a meeting without explanation.

In my experience, Outlook users seem to be better at explaining in the invitation why the meeting’s been called than do the contacts I have who use web-based calendars. Perhaps the reason is that Outlook’s often used by big corporates, which have clear expectations of communication, where web-based tools tend to be used more commonly in the disparate world of remote workers, startups and small web operations.

I constantly receive invitations to meetings without any explanation. If I don’t know any more about the meeting than what you’ve called it in your calendar, then how will I know if it’s important I attend? How will I know how to prepare for the meeting?

It’s basic courtesy to tell people who’s time you require exactly why you need it. This can help them prioritize their commitments, and it shows you respect their time, which is always beneficial in building strong working relationships.

4. Moving a meeting without explanation.

If you schedule a meeting at the wrong time by accident, or need to move it, make sure you explain that in the updated invitation. Fail to do so, and confusion is guaranteed.

Recently, a meeting I’d agreed to attend was rescheduled without explanation. The new time was inconvenient, but I had no idea whether I should reschedule my other commitments, because the rescheduled time was the only one that a key team member could make, or whether this was a reshuffle that had a degree of flexibility to it. Perhaps it had been moved erroneously, as a mere slip of the finger as my contact moused over their calendar. Who knew? More emailing and IMing ensued as I tried to sort out the finer details.

Make sure you give contacts as much information as you can when you need to reschedule a meeting, so they can let you know as soon as possible if they can make the new time, or if other commitments must take priority. the more information you give, the more swiftly you’ll be able to arrive at a mutually acceptable time.

5. Rescheduling a meeting without deleting the original time from contacts’ schedules.

I currently have a single meeting scheduled at three different points in my calendar. The contact who arranged this meeting has had to reschedule it a number of times. But he doesn’t include any information about the new meeting times in his emails, and he doesn’t delete the previously-arranged meetings from contact’s calendars (even if he did, that functionality may not work for all scheduling tools).

Which time is the right one? The most recent one? Your guess is as good as mine. Whatever the case, it certainly makes scheduling my other work difficult. If you don’t trust your calendar’s ability to delete a previously scheduled meeting from a contact’s calendar, email them and confirm that you need to shift the meeting.

Better Collaborative Scheduling

It might hurt to accept it, but in some cases, reverting to the good old group email might wind up being the quickest, least frustrating way to schedule meetings.

In most cases where you’re coordinating meeting times with others who don’t work in your organization, or using the same tool, your electronic calendar probably needs to be supported by courtesy emails if it is to actually save you time and make diary management more efficient.

In all cases, include as much information as you can with the invitation: an agenda, an explanation of why you need the invitee to attend, an alternative time if there are few invitees, and you have some flexibility around when the meeting takes place, and so on.

Do you have any collaborative scheduling horror stories? Which tools do you use?

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1. Control your phone time. Web workers tend to have  an”open door” phone policy. For example, when a relative calls, my husband takes the call only to fall into the trap of the person going on and on. I suggested he find a nice way to end the call. Some fear sounding rude in cutting a call short, but you can do it politely. Pick a couple of friendly phrases to use to end a call when it has served its purpose. Try: “I hate to cut this short, but I need to prepare for a meeting. It was great catching up with you.”
2. Use the Internet with purpose. I’m guilty of surfing aimlessly on the Internet or not making the most of social media time. With practice and mindfulness, I’ve cut this wasteful time — not completely, but good enough. Accept that it’s OK to skip social media when you’re too busy, and read Celine’s methods to end compulsive Internet fiddling.
3. Manage your after-hours time. Stay in control of your schedule by being proactive with your after-hours time. There are some ideas in “How to Stop Clients from Invading Your After-Hours Time.”
4. Change direction when procrastinating or distracted. We all have moments when we can’t complete tasks because we just can’t get into it. The reason could be tiredness, distractions or something else. Rather than dwell on the task, go do something else. Here are tips for fending off procrastination.
5. Review your meetings. Have you been attending the same weekly meetings for months or even years? Are these meetings really needed? Regularly scheduled meetings can lose value. Ask for an agenda when people request your attendance. This gently reminds them to create an agenda, if they don’t have one. If they still don’t provide one, explain that you need to prepare yourself for the meeting and an agenda helps. Check out Imran’s tips on running effective meetings.
6. Hold conversations at a better time. Having a conversations that’s going in a circle with no new information? That’s the time to put the brakes on the conversation and follow up later.
7. Save time in your calendar. If you need to work on a project uninterrupted, put it in your calendar. This way you can easily say, “I’ve already got something scheduled at that time.” It makes it easier to say no. If you need to spend time with the family, add that, too.
8. Outsource or delegate. Can you delegate some of your work? Outsource personal chores and errands? Amber provides delegation tips.
9. End commitments. I used to join Twitter chats three nights a week on a regular basis, but stopped when my eyes ached. I also switched from being a regular player in time-consuming tennis matches away from home to substituting. Maybe it’s time to step down from a nonprofit board position, or to ditch some bad clients.
10. Be mindful about television time. Like surfing the Internet, it’s easy to waste away time flipping through channels during work breaks and after-hours. For years, I’ve recorded select TV programs and watched them at a convenient time such as while folding laundry, exercising and on a lunch break. Also, when a show bores me for too many episodes, I quit watching it.
11. Carry a book with you. I always have a book in my car or bag to prepare for unexpected idle time. Having a book with me at all times ensures I don’t waste free time by grabbing some reading time.
12. Manage in-person interruptions. This might not be so much or a problem for some web workers. However, those working in coworking centers, and those working from offices in family homes, might find their time invaded by people desiring a friendly chat. Have some phrases ready to rescue you from unexpected visitors. Try: “I hate to cut our visit short, but I am about to enter an online webinar. Thanks for stopping by.” Home office workers’ interruptions might include significant others, children and others living in their home. Check out my tips for meeting deadlines while keeping your kids happy.

How can you find more time in your day for things that matter?

Photo by stock.xchng user Kristian Stokholm

The best time to deal with this situation is at the start of a relationship. “I treat my consultant/contractor work like a regular job, and set expectations when I first speak with a prospective client. I explain what my work hours are and that I’m not available in the evenings or weekends,” says Deborah Edwards-Onoro.

Like most web workers, you may be flexible and accept occasional out-of-hours work. Still, it could snowball into a regular thing. “Frankly, if you don’t set the parameters ahead of time, you’re setting yourself up for expectations that aren’t going to be acceptable,” says Michele Wilcox.

What if you have multiple clients and they all decide to call on you at the same time, or you bite off more than you can chew? Draw a line under your time by being proactive with these tips.

• Discuss work hours at the start of a relationship. Specify your hours of availability and your flexibility. Set guidelines for special projects and emergencies that require out-of-hours work. These guidelines could include number of days or hours of advance notice for after hours work, list higher rates and how to handle emergencies. Get all of this down in a simple contract template that you can re-use.
• Keep separate phone lines. Web workers should have separate phone numbers for home and business. It’s not professional to use one line for both, especially as there are plenty of telephony options available that can make it possible without a big expense.
• Find a voicemail tool with features you need. Some voicemail providers offer features that give you more control over how the service handles your calls.
• Let calls go to voicemail. Your client may be calling to share a thought without expecting you to answer. Let voicemail take the message and then check to see what the client has to say. Answering every time gives the impression you’re “always on.”
• Turn off the phone. The phone should be there for your convenience. Despite this, some people struggle to ignore a ringing phone.
• Set email guidelines. Tell your clients when they can expect an email response. You can set a rule that you reply within two hours during working hours and then a different rule for after hours and weekends.
• Post your business hours. List your hours on your web site and in your voice mail, or indicate the best time to reach you. Prospective clients will respect your hours if they see your schedule before hiring you.
• Turn off instant messaging, Facebook chat and similar tools. If clients contact you by instant messaging (IM) or on other platforms such as Skype, remember to switch your status to “away” as needed — or turn off the service.
• Be proactive and present. Some clients don’t think to ask if you’re available for after-hours work. Rather than waiting for it to happen, tell the client that you’re flexible and would appreciate advance notice if something comes up. “If a client feels taken care of, he or she may hesitate before picking up the phone on weekends or after hours,” says Michelle I. Zavala.

Some people believe “always on” is the way to stay ahead of competitors, but it can harm your health and work quality. “How can you give your best to a client if they’re calling you, say, in the middle of the night and you’re asleep?” asks Teresa Nolan Barensfeld. “Another point is that your clients won’t see you as a professional if you don’t set any boundaries about your availability.”

Some freelancers say they compromise with after-hours work by taking time off during the day. You may run into clients who need 24/7 support. Steer away from such a set-up by asking questions and understanding their expectations. “Not everyone needs to set these boundaries for themselves and not every business model allows them. However, I have found that I am far more productive if I have a clear distinction between my office hours and the time I spend with my family,” says Laura Sultan.

How do you manage after-hours work?

Photo by stock.xchng user Hans Thoursie.

This approach doesn’t have to only apply to corporate employees — it can apply to web workers as well. Whether you’re a freelancer or a corporate employee, if your work is measured on your performance rather than your presence, your work hours may be flexible enough to accommodate your own “20-Percent Time.”

But why do it in the first place?

• Innovation and creativity. Innovation is one of the most cited perks of 20-percent time. According to this handy infographic, half of Google’s products are a result of this employment perk. The products that have resulted from 20-Percent Time include Google Adsense and many Google Labs features. An example that might seem closer to home is cartoonist Hugh MacLeod. He drew his first gapingvoid cartoons during his downtime while he was working as a copywriter. Now he’s published a book and does commissioned art. He may not have had a firm policy on creating things outside of work, but it’s easy to lose sight of side projects when one focuses on their “real” work almost every waking hour to the exclusion of everything else.
• Exploration. By making the time to pursue personal passions, you can dabble in different areas, which sometimes results a broader understanding or a new perspective on the field you’re working in. It might even lead to a new line of work altogether. 37signals started as a web design firm, but couldn’t find collaboration tools suited to their needs so they created Basecamp. This led them to develop their own web apps instead, eventually leading to the Ruby on Rails framework.
• Opportunity. By making time for personal projects you give yourself license to act on ideas, questions and passions that you might not be able to do during your work week. You’ll have a chance to do tasks would’ve been too risky, or even seemed downright strange.
• Motivation. In a popular TED talk, Dan Pink discussed the science behind three major motivators in the workplace (which I elaborated on in a previous post). These motivators are autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Though your experience with the latter two may depend on the project you choose, giving yourself 20-Percent Time allows you to exercise your autonomy.

Setting Your 20-Percent Time

Before you schedule your 20-Percent Time, remember that the number shouldn’t be taken literally. Allocate the time that works for you. You can take one day each week, an entire weekend, or even 30 minutes each day. Personally, I like to start my day working on a personal passion project. It gives me fuel to work through the rest of the day. Plus, it eases me into a heavier workload ahead — after all, if I make a mistake on my personal project, none of my clients will suffer.

As Simon noted in a previous post, it’s easier to get burned out when you don’t work a typical 9-to-5 job. With that in mind, how can the typical web worker manage to have 20-Percent Time especially if they have a busy home life? It’s hard to squeeze in a personal project if your family, pets, and home errands suddenly require your attention.

Taking a cue from Sylvia Plath, why not work on your project before your household wakes up? This might mean waking up earlier than usual, but even 15 minutes per day spent on a passion project is better than nothing. Plus, the quiet environment might make it easier for you to work.

But here’s some more common sense: mark the end of your workday. It may not be a cutting-edge life hack, but it’s simple and, more importantly, it’s true. Only by setting actual work hours can we draw a clear line between work and the rest of our preoccupations.

Do you set aside time for personal projects? If so, how did you manage it and what do you do with your time?

Photo by flickr user net_efekt, licensed under CC-BY-2.0

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We all have different ways of working based on our body clocks and personal preferences. I get my best work done between 7am and 2pm. I usually try to get up between 6am and 7am, and head right to the computer to catch up on East Coast client email and take care of any urgent items before hitting the shower and starting my day.

Between 7am and 2pm, I work mostly on client projects and writing. I also schedule many of my client meetings during this time and most of my posts for this blog are written in the morning and early afternoon. I try to schedule non-billable meetings after 2pm, so most of my business development or informational meetings are scheduled in the late afternoon. I also try to schedule my workouts in the late afternoon / early evening when my productivity is waning, as I need something to re-energize me.

I also try to combine meetings where possible to avoid spending too much time in transit getting from one meeting to the next. My favorite way to do this is to combine meetings with a Friday afternoon event in Portland called Beer and Blog. By Friday afternoon, I am usually less focused when sitting at home trying to get work done, so I try to schedule meetings right before Beer and Blog. This gets me out of the house, gets the energy level back up, and reduces travel time by bringing my meetings to the same location as an event that I plan to attend anyway.

This doesn’t mean that I am completely inflexible when it comes to scheduling. I sometimes end up doing client work in the afternoon or evening to meet a deadline, and I often end up with random non-work coffee meetings with people in the morning to accommodate busy schedules. I can be flexible, but I certainly have my preferences for certain types of work at specific times.

Until last week, I didn’t realize how big of an impact my schedule had on my productivity. In Portland, we were having a heat wave with temperatures in the 90s all week, which meant that my afternoon workouts were nearly impossible, so I shifted my workouts into the morning and my client work into the late afternoon. While I was able to beat the heat and get my workouts finished before the temperature hit 80 degrees, I found it much more difficult to finish my client work. I was able to get everything finished, but I was more easily distracted in the afternoons, and I missed having the workout as a way to get my energy levels back up. We’re having another heat wave this week, but now that I am more aware of how my productivity is impacted by my schedule, maybe I can make a few more tweaks that result in less of an impact to my productivity.

How do you schedule your time? How does your schedule impact your productivity?

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If I believed the hype from all of these scheduling services, I’d have to assume that we were all just careening around haphazardly, making and breaking so many appointments and meetings that we lose all sense of time and date. In practice, I think that most of the time the most scheduling software I need is my iPhone and its built-in Calendar application. That said, there are definitely times when scheduling using Google Calendar, which I already use for group-related activities, would make more sense.

Using ScheduleOnce’s Google Calendar Firefox Add-on, that’s exactly what you can do. Just install the add-on via the ScheduleOnce web site, restart your browser, and then log into your Google Calendar to get started. From there, you can use the ScheduleOnce control panel in your sidebar to pick Tentative Availability times which are then optionally connected back to your Google Calendar. Once you’ve chosen your available times, ScheduleOnce generates a link that you can email to other potential attendees so that they can choose from the times you suggest.

Once invitees reply, you’ll be notified in the ScheduleOnce sidebar window. You’ll also receive a notification email from the web app with a direct link to allow you to view what times your invitee has chosen. When you click on it, you’ll be presented with a view of which times overlap, as indicated by a green block on ScheduleOnce’s daily agenda display. Connecting to your Google Calendar, selecting a time, and clicking “Schedule Meeting” will confirm the chosen slot and send a notification to all attendees. It’ll also add the event to your Google Calendar and those of your fellow attendees, so long as you all have the ScheduleOnce add-on installed.

It doesn’t sound complicated, and it isn’t in theory, but in practice I had to do a whole lot more reloading and reauthorizing than I should’ve probably been required to do. Whether this is a problem with the way ScheduleOnce is written, or with the Google Calendar developer API, I couldn’t say. All I know is that I found myself thinking somewhat wistfully back to the days of When is Good, when times were simpler. But if you absolutely abhor manually entering things into your Google Calendar, give ScheduleOnce a try. It is free, which definitely helps make up for its little quirks.

Do you use scheduling software, or, like me, do you prefer to do things manually?

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BookFresh’s online service isn’t so different from a virtual receptionist. As you set up your account, you have the opportunity to choose what kinds of appointments you’ll accept: as a web worker with clients all over, I primarily offer only phone appointments. If you’re willing to have clients come to your business, or you’re willing to go to visit them, however, you can choose those options. You can also schedule a client without having him go through setting up an appointment himself, as well as limit the hours you are available on your calendar.

As you explore BookFresh, you’ll find many features beyond simply setting appointments. The site can issue a variety of appointment reminders, including via text message to make sure you get them. You can also sync the service with your existing calendar. If you charge directly for the time you spend meeting with a client, you can also have BookFresh offer a pre-payment option to your clients; the site uses PayPal to request and accept payments. You can even embed your appointment schedule in your own web site.

If you work in a team,  the scheduler can handle multiple staff members on both the Business plan ($19.95 per month) and the Business Pro plan ($29.95). The crucial difference between the two plans is the availability of phone support. A free plan is available if you’re interested in testing out BookFresh, but it is severely limited.

In addition to the scheduling services, BookFresh offers a few additional features meant to help you find more leads. The site allows you to integrate client testimonials into your schedule, as well as create a business mini-site in order to better attract clients. It also provides advertising services to drum up local business for your company through Google, Vast and other sites. I wouldn’t necessarily consider such an advertising strategy to be useful for many web workers, considering not all of us look primarily for local business, but the feature doesn’t seem to have any additional costs associated with it.

What tools do you use for setting up client meetings?

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