The emails to set up a meeting in your office probably look something like this:
• Tuesday I’m free all day, and Wednesday after 2:00
• I can do Tuesday at any time but 4:00, Wednesday is ok
• Anytime Tuesday works for me, but Wednesday is out
• Where shall we meet?
• I have a client luncheon Tuesday, I’m pretty sure I’ll be done by 1:30
• OK, let’s do it at 2:00 Tuesday
• OH, I’m so sorry, I forgot I have a dentist appointment then. Can we do 3:00?
Does this look familiar? Of course it does. It involved 7 email exchanges. SEVEN!
Zapping out a quick email to ask this seemingly innocuous question may seem like the simplest way to arrange a meeting, but it actually pulls us into a tiresome “reply all” chain that clutters our inboxes and adds frustration where it isn’t needed. When this happens, finding a meeting time can become so frustrating that you might even resort to drawing a grid to show in one place when everyone’s available. In the end, planning a meeting actually takes more time than the meeting itself.
Thankfully, there’s a solution that even the least talented artists can embrace –the Outlook Calendar feature.
To avoid insane scheduling emails, Outlook Calendar is an excellent solution, as long as everyone uses it all the time.
There is no part time option.
Several years ago, my 100+ person division wasted countless hours and emails trying to decide when to meet. It frustrated me to no end. Back then, I didn’t have a solution, but one of my managers suggested that we start using the Outlook Calendar. A stroke of genius!
We held a meeting to announce the new process, review why we needed to use Outlook Calendar as our scheduler, and what would happen when someone failed to update their schedule. Then, we gave every employee a week to include every meeting and event in their Outlook calendars. Whether lunch, a doctor’s appointment, vacation, or travel time, it all was to go in there.
I was truly amazed at the results! Finally, I was invited to meetings I could actually be at! All I had to do was “accept,” then the appointment magically appeared on my calendar. I could see the attendees, the meeting objectives, and the location.
Surprise! While we got used to this, we only used Outlook Calendar to schedule meetings with multiple attendees. Then, to my surprise, people started using it to plan one-on-one meetings, and eventually to schedule meetings with people outside of our division. With more attention given to planning and scheduling, no one had to drop everything when the office “drop by” happened. . Calendars everywhere filled up with meetings – it was a hit!
Soon we discovered that even conference room assignments could be placed on the calendar. No more running around the building to find what rooms were available when. And, when a meeting got cancelled, the room instantly became available in the Outlook Calendar! This all sounds too good to be true, but it isn’t – so long as everyone’s on board.
Inevitably, people outside of your control will initiate email chains, including employees in other divisions, customers, and personal contacts. Some may not use Outlook, others may not know how. Some will even miss – or worse, avoid – placing items on their Outlook Calendars. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work as you hoped or planned.
Rogues. So how do you deal with the rogue employee in your division who forgets to update their Calendar? Imagine, for instance, that a meeting request goes out to eight people for a time when all are available, except the rogue has an un-entered conflict.
Thankfully, the fix can be simple. When this situation happens (and it will!) that rogue must now become responsible for rescheduling the meeting. That person won’t want to repeat being the cause of a rescheduling, so they learn the importance of utilizing Outlook rather quickly.
All to commit. It’s important to reiterate that for this to work, everyone in your control must commit to updating their calendars. In addition to enhancing the productivity of your work group, it avoids rewarding the wrong behavior. When the organizer has to rework the scheduling rather than the person whose mistake created the redo, the wrong behavior is being rewarded. Having the entire department encourage each other to use this tool creates appreciated efficiency and boosts productivity while minimizing stress.
Sometimes the solutions are already there; we just need to discover them. In this case, the Outlook Calendar is a huge productivity tool. So use it, and make sure everyone else does, too.
