When I worked as a personal assistant to the managing director at my last job, the majority of my day was spent organising his diary, juggling his time and setting appointments. Organising his working life was a complex task, ensuring he had enough time at each appointment, allowing time for over-run meetings and enough travel time between one appointment to the next whilst always ensuring he got the best value out of his time especially if travelling to other parts of the country.
This is by no means where diary management ends, assistants also need to manage the time managers spend outside of meetings, therefore all is not as easy as it may seem, diary management is an essential service that assistants offer their managers, it is time consuming and complicated but a must for managers to allow them to do their job effectively and meet their business goals and objectives.
As an assistant, I used to manage every part of my manager’s diary, he had to relinquish the reigns and trust me to do an excellent job. He would direct all meeting requests to me with simple instructions of what he required and then I would set about making the appointment. I would then add the meeting request to his diary and during a daily or weekly catch-up we would simply review the coming weeks and make any necessary amendments if his diary changed or an urgent appointment arose.
Effective diary management
The service we provide as an assistant should be tailored to the requirements of the manager, ensuring it runs smoothly is ultimately down to effective communication with the manager – how do they run their calendar and how would they like their meetings set out? Review how the process is working and discuss if any changes can be made – everyone works differently.
Once you know how the manager would like their diary to be managed it is then important to understand how to maximise the managers productively through diary management. You should know when the peak times of the month are, for example finance month end, reporting deadlines, board meetings etc. as that way you can work around these dates when setting up diary appointments. Do they like early starts, late finishes, do they like a day each week set aside for admin catch-ups?
Does your manager like regular appointments with the same persons? If so, think about setting up reoccurring appointments however I wouldn’t recommend setting this up for any longer than 6 months at a time. Reason being, attendees or the date / time and location can change and of course meetings do get cancelled. Also, check if the meetings are still worthwhile, business evolves!
Hints and tips for diary management
When attempting to schedule an appointment and you have offered a date and time, whilst waiting for the other person to reply, put a ‘placeholder’ in the manager’s diary. This ensures you don’t offer the same date and time twice and avoids any unnecessary frustration if you then have to offer alternatives.
When sending out possible diary dates, review your manager’s diary to see if it would fit with the other appointments on that date, do they have a difficult appointment that day which may affect the appointment you are trying to make? Is the meeting beforehand likely to over-run? Does the manager require time to travel home and another appointment will mean they will get home late? There are lots of things you need to factor in and think about before setting an appointment. If travel time is required, allow a little longer than google maps says it will take in case of traffic/diversions or a caffeine/comfort break is required.
Review your manager’s diary on a regular basis, meetings change and I would always advise sending a courtesy email to check if a meeting is still taking place especially if it involves extensive travel and has been diarised for a while.
If your manager requires reminders about anything the best place to put these is in the ‘all day’ appointment feature – I use this for deadline reminders and to alert managers when their team members are on annual leave.
You can use different colours to highlight different types of meetings; 1-2-1’s, important business meetings, telephone calls etc. This can be an effective way of highlighting what the manager is up to in a day at an easy glance.
Tasks are also more likely to be completed (research suggests by up to 75%) if they are added to a calendar so it may be worth adding important deadlines to your manager’s calendar and then scheduling some time for them to complete such tasks.
If you can, work with two screens, that way you can be working whilst having your managers calendar on the other screen so you will always have visibility of where they are and you will undoubtedly have to refer to it at all times of the day.
Every appointment you make should contain as much information as possible, however the minimum requirements should be:
– meeting title/subject
– location (full address incl. postcode)
– date / time
– type of meeting (call / face to face etc.)
– attendees
– agenda (if applicable)
Every appointment you make should be essential to your manager’s business requirements, bearing in mind their time is precious and there day needs to be productive.
Lastly, never just accept diary appointments from people who say, ‘they will know what it is about’ – always check with the manager, people will try it on and good communication with your manager will ensure their diary is only filled with appointments they wish to have.
Communication is the key to successful diary management.