While it may seem simple, any executive assistant knows managing calendars is much more than scheduling meetings and tasks. It’s about ensuring your executive is set up for success. And the best way to set them up for success? Managing their most valuable asset: Time.
Uncontrolled time quickly leads to chaos, which is why executive calendar management is such an important (albeit time consuming) task for EAs. But when you have control over your executive’s time, you are ensuring that they are focused on the most important things and NOT focused on the things that don’t affect the bottom line.
We recently hosted a masterclass with Jeremy Burrows, author of The Leader Assistant book and host of The Leader Assistant podcast, to discuss all things calendar management and how to keep your executive from burning out or focusing on the wrong tasks. Watch the full masterclass below or keep reading to learn the three biggest tips for successfully managing your executive’s calendar.
Set up an ideal week 🗓️
The biggest and most important step in making sure you are managing your executive’s time well is having a strong foundation. Jeremy recommends setting up an ideal week calendar, or a template of what your executive’s perfect week looks like based on a handful of different factors. This can include:
- What type of meetings they enjoy vs. ones they don’t
- When they are in the best headspace for meetings vs. focus time
- How long they prefer meetings to last
- Times of the day when they are most or least productive
- How many meetings per week is doable vs. making them feel burned out
Based on your executive’s preferences, you can create their ideal week calendar. While this can shift and change, you should continue to refer back to it to ensure you are managing your executive’s calendar in the best way for them. Download Jeremy’s Ideal Week Calendar Template here.
Stay flexible based on the priorities 🥇
Once you have an ideal week template in place, it’s important to remember that this is a living, breathing document. You don’t need to stick to it perfectly all the time, especially as priorities shift and change.
Consider having multiple ideal week calendars based on different needs or times of the year. For example, when your executive is focused on fundraising, sales, or board meetings. When goals change, consider updating the ideal week to reflect the new priorities. This will ensure your executive is always focused on the right things at the right times.
Leverage the right tools 🛠️
Now that you feel confident in your week, consider adding tools to help you manage your executive’s calendar more effectively. Base offers a handful of features to help you do this successfully.
Scheduler is fast, frictionless calendar management created to think like an assistant. It eliminates human error, takes out all the back and forth, and streamlines the scheduling process — without taking away your control. You can propose times to multiple guests while holding preferred space in your exec’s calendar, so you can still maintain their ideal week while honoring guests’ preferences.
Analyze enables you to evaluate and improve how your leader is spending their time, from the amount of time spent in internal vs. external meetings to how many of their meetings are scheduled vs. unscheduled.
Ready to take your executive calendar management to the next level?
Here at Base, we’re all about helping strategic assistants do their best work. Our app was built solely for assistants’ daily workflow so you can utilize your time more efficiently and support your leader more effectively. Base is a single place for you to create executive briefings, field emails, track projects, manage calendars, and more.
