When you are assigned a new task or responsibility at work, what do you do? Do you set aside the new task until you are finished with your current tasks, or do you drop whatever you are doing and focus on the new task right away?

Let’s consider setting aside the new task. Chances are you already have a multitude of tasks and responsibilities that you are actively working on. Settings aside your new task until later keeps you free to continue working on your current responsibilities. In fact, you may keep setting aside the new task until you are forced to work on it due to time constraints. At this point, it will be a stressful task because you will feel rushed, and you may not do your best work because you are rushing to get it done on time.

What about acting on your new task right away? This may sound like a good idea, but if you switch to working on your new task you will have to set aside your other work. This could also lead to the case where you end up working on a task at the last minute with deadlines looming and stress levels soaring because at some point you will be forced to stop working on the new task and you will have to go back to working on the old task to complete it on time. Also, if you keep switching tasks when a new task gets assigned you might never finish any of your tasks because you are always switching to new tasks as soon as they show up.

So if waiting to work on a new task is a bad idea and dropping everything to focus on a new task right away is not helpful either, what should you do? The answer is to schedule appointments with yourself.

Scheduling Appointments With Yourself

Whenever something new comes your way, take a moment, and open your calendar. Find a time when you are not already working on another task and schedule an appointment with yourself. The purpose of this appointment will be to work on your new task. Once you have scheduled this appointment, you can set aside your new task and go back to working on the task that you were working on when the new task came your way.

What this does for you is that it lets you continue to make progress on your current task while also picking a time when you will work on your new task. Yes, you are setting aside the new task, but you are not setting it aside indefinitely. Instead, you are being strategic by committing to work on the new task at a time of your choosing instead of being forced to work on it right away.

Once you start scheduling appointments with yourself, I recommend that you pick a time at the end of every week for reviewing your current tasks and scheduling time next week to work on those tasks. This allows you to ensure that you make progress each week on all your tasks and that no task gets left to the last minute.

For example, you could pick the same time every Friday afternoon to schedule your work for the following week. Make this Friday afternoon appointment non-negotiable and commit to showing up for this appointment every Friday. Let your coworkers know that you are unavailable during this time and don’t schedule other work during this time.

Let’s say you schedule this appointment at 4 PM Friday afternoon. At 4 PM, set aside whatever work you are doing and switch to reviewing your task list and creating appointments for the following week. I expect that you could spend 30 minutes of your time creating your schedule for the coming week. Once you are done creating appointments with yourself for the coming week, you can resume working on your other tasks until the end of the workday.

During these 30 minutes on Friday afternoon, decide which of your tasks is most important and schedule that task first thing on Monday morning. Then follow up with appointments for your other tasks and schedule them for later on Monday and later in the week.

Once you start scheduling appointments with yourself, treat them the same as you would appointments with other people. This means showing up on time for your appointments and it means not skipping your appointments. If you respect other people, you will honour your commitments to them and you will show up on time for your appointments. Do the same for yourself. Respect the commitments you make to yourself when you schedule an appointment with yourself and show up to that appointment on time.

Managing Your Appointments

After you have adopted the strategy of scheduling appointments with yourself, you need to manage your appointments. This includes managing the appointments you make with yourself and managing the appointments you make with other people.

The most important thing to do when managing your appointments is to not double book yourself. For example, if you schedule an hour from 2 PM to 3 PM on Monday to work on a high priority task, don’t agree to at attend a meeting with other people during that time. Instead, let them know you will be unavailable during that time and that you will be available after 3 PM. You can then pick a time to meet with them that does not conflict with your existing appointment.

It does not matter if an appointment is with yourself or with other people. Consider yourself unavailable during your scheduled appointments and don’t schedule other work or other appointments during that time.

Another aspect of appointment management is the rescheduling of appointments. Sometimes we have no choice but to cancel an appointment. When this happens, don’t just cancel the appointment. Instead, schedule a new appointment in addition to cancelling the current appointment.

For example, let’s say that one of your clients has a critical issue that needs your attention. They need to meet with you at 2:30 PM, which conflicts with the 2 PM to 3 PM appointment that you made with yourself. In that hour you were going to work on a new software feature for a mission critical application. Instead of giving up on the planned work, you reschedule the work for 9 AM tomorrow morning. You are then free to meet with your client at 2:30 PM. This allows you to address your client’s needs and your important work on your mission critical application will still get done tomorrow morning.

Scheduling Appointments Outside of Working Hours

So far we have talked about scheduling appointments with ourselves in the context of our work life. I also recommend that you schedule appointments with yourself outside of work as well.

Why would you do this? The answer is that we all have important responsibilities outside of work and we need to find time to work on those responsibilities. Something else you may have are goals for yourself. Things you want to do and things you want to accomplish. Achieving those goals will require effort on your part, and the question is, when will you find time to work on those goals?

The solution to finding time to work on your goals and responsibilities outside of work is to schedule appointments with yourself. Just like you would at work, pull out your calendar. Schedule times during the evening and on the weekend to work on your goals, responsibilities, and tasks. Note that if you are a morning person you could also schedules appointments with yourself during the morning before you go to work.

For example, as Vice President of Education for my Toastmasters club one of my responsibilities is to prepare the meeting agenda each week. To fulfill this responsibility I have scheduled an appointment with myself for 7 PM every Friday evening. AT 7 PM on Friday evening I sit down and prepare the agenda for Tuesday’s club meeting. I then email the agenda to my fellow club members after it is complete. By scheduling this appointment with myself I fulfill my responsibilities every week and because it is an appointment on my calendar I always remember to prepare the agenda each week.

When considering the scheduling of appointments with yourself, don’t think that this will take away all your free time. You will still have lots of time outside of work and outside of the time that you schedule appointments with yourself. In fact, you can even schedule the time when you are not working.

For example, you could pick a time every night during the week as your cut-off time where you stop working on your goals and responsibilities. Don’t schedule any appointments after this cut-off time. After your cut-off time is when you can spend time with family, when you can engage in an entertaining pursuit, when you can simply relax, or when you can do whatever it is you enjoy doing in your time outside of work.

The key point to this strategy of scheduling appointments with yourself is that you are committing to actively work on your goals, responsibilities, and tasks at scheduled times during the week. You are also committing to giving yourself free time outside of your planned work time. Ultimately, you are committing to leading yourself so that you can make progress on your most important goals, responsibilities, and tasks while also leaving yourself time to enjoy life.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I recommend that you actively schedule appointments with yourself.  These can be appointments at work and appointments in your life outside of work.

When you schedule appointments with yourself you are setting aside time where you will actively work on your most important goals, responsibilities, and tasks. You are not leaving things to chance, and you are not leaving things to the last minute. You are being responsible, you are taking charge of your life, and you are getting things done.

I urge you take up the challenge of using your time strategically and effectively by scheduling appointments with yourself. Who knows what you will achieve?