How to set up teamwork with a calendar?
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Time management is a fundamental part of any workflow. Without this, it is impossible to navigate in time and priorities, to ensure that tasks are completed on schedule.
According to our research, every second team has time management problems. One of the basic tools for solving these problems is the team calendar.
What is the result of working with the calendar?
Stages of implementation of work with the calendar:
The 1 stage. Choose the caledar.
There are many solutions on the market, that have
similar functionality: Google Calendar, TeamCalendar in Confluence, Monday, TeamUp, etc. All of them have the minimum necessary functions and a user-friendly interface, the ability to integrate with other services: task managers, messengers, CRM, etc. In this article, we will consider Google Calendar as the example, but all the key points will be relevant for other calendars as well.
The 2 stage. Perform the initial calendar setup.
Please note that in order to work with Google Services, you must have a registered Google account. Instructions for registering a Google account are here.
2.1 Please, log in to Google Calendar via link or via Google account:
According to our research, every second team has time management problems. One of the basic tools for solving these problems is the team calendar.
What is the result of working with the calendar?
- Each team member keeps his calendar up to date, clearly understands his workload and priorities;
- Team leader has access to all team calendars, can plan both new work sprints and meetings based on this information.
Stages of implementation of work with the calendar:
The 1 stage. Choose the caledar.
There are many solutions on the market, that have
similar functionality: Google Calendar, TeamCalendar in Confluence, Monday, TeamUp, etc. All of them have the minimum necessary functions and a user-friendly interface, the ability to integrate with other services: task managers, messengers, CRM, etc. In this article, we will consider Google Calendar as the example, but all the key points will be relevant for other calendars as well.
The 2 stage. Perform the initial calendar setup.
Please note that in order to work with Google Services, you must have a registered Google account. Instructions for registering a Google account are here.
2.1 Please, log in to Google Calendar via link or via Google account:
Time management is a fundamental part of any workflow. Without this, it is impossible to navigate in time and priorities, to ensure that tasks are completed on schedule.
According to our research, every second team has significant time management problems. One of the basic tools for solving this problem is the team calendar.
According to our research, every second team has significant time management problems. One of the basic tools for solving this problem is the team calendar.
Please remember: processes and guides should not be created for the sake of creating processes and guides.
We wish you success in the first steps towards the formation and development of your virtual dream work environment!
We wish you success in the first steps towards the formation and development of your virtual dream work environment!
2.2 Specify the start and end time of your working day.
In order to create free space for the events of the working day, we need to specify your Off hours. For example, let's set up the scenario in which your working day starts at 10:00 and ends at 18:00:
Please, click on "Create" - "Event" - "More options":
In order to create free space for the events of the working day, we need to specify your Off hours. For example, let's set up the scenario in which your working day starts at 10:00 and ends at 18:00:
Please, click on "Create" - "Event" - "More options":
- Enter the Add title, in our case - Off hours;
- Choose from 00:00 to 10:00;
- Choose your Time zone;
- Choose Every weekday (Monday to Friday);
- We recommend removing the notification about the beginning of the off hours. Notifications are a great tool, but in order not to clutter up the communication background, we use them only when it is really necessary;
- Choose the color - in our case, the color is Graphite;
- Choose that you are Busy;
- Choose a Public visibility;
- Remove all the ticks in the Guest Permissions block;
- Click on Save button.
If everything is done correctly, then you will get this result (in the upper right corneryou can choose the Day format/Week/Month, etc.):
Great, free space has been created! If your working day consists of two fragments, for example, on Wednesdays you work from 10:00 to 12:00 and from 16:00 to 18:00, then create another Off hours event on Wednesdays (from 12:00 to 16:00):
If everything is done correctly, you will get the result:
Thus, the team leader, who has access to all calendars, always sees the current working hours of each team member, taking into account time zones and individual schedule arrangements. Choosing the time for the meeting, he looks at the employee's calendar and selects free slots. Meetings are not scheduled in busy slots.
2.3 Specify time slots in which you work on tasks and you are not available for meetings
2.3 Specify time slots in which you work on tasks and you are not available for meetings
- Enter the Add title - in our case Finish the article about Google Calendar;
- Specify the time interval in which you will work on the task;
- Choose the color of the event - in our case, the color is Basil;
- Indicate that you are busy at this time;
- Click on Save button
If everything is done correctly, you will get the result:
Awesome! You have finished the initial setup of your calendar!
The next stages:
Stage 3. Perform the initial calendar setup for each team member;
Stage 4. Implement calendar usage rules and scenarios;
Stage 5. Implement regular monitoring of the execution of rules and scenarios.
We have prepared 2 ready-to-use guides for you (team leader's guide and team member’s guide), which can be taken into work and implemented.
The next stages:
Stage 3. Perform the initial calendar setup for each team member;
Stage 4. Implement calendar usage rules and scenarios;
Stage 5. Implement regular monitoring of the execution of rules and scenarios.
We have prepared 2 ready-to-use guides for you (team leader's guide and team member’s guide), which can be taken into work and implemented.
By implementing such simple calendar assemblies in teams from different regions of the globe, we regularly receive digitized results in the form of reduced working time losses. It takes no more than 10-15 minutes per day for each team member to keep the calendar up to date, but this saves thousands of team working hours per year.
Planning meetings becomes clear, simple and transparent. We described how to schedule a meeting correctly in the team leader''s guide. Take action!
Planning meetings becomes clear, simple and transparent. We described how to schedule a meeting correctly in the team leader''s guide. Take action!
Please, do the same for the 18:00 to 00:00 time interval.
If everything is done correctly, then you will get this result (in the upper right corneryou can choose the Day /Week/Month format):
or just click on an empty area of the calendar:
