🕐 Mastering Time with Magic: How I Make My Calendar Work for Me 📆

This, combined with a wild story I came across about how Stephen Hawking threw a party for time-travelers and then didn't send out invites until AFTER the party was over to see if time travel is a thing (thoughts on if anyone showed up?)

It all got me thinking about time and how my calendar is probably the MOST helpful thing towards how I spend my time.

Let's be honest, when used correctly, calendars can be awesome - imagine if Doc Brown from "Back to the Future" had a digital calendar. It'd be packed with reminders like "Invent Flux Capacitor," "Avoid Biff," and "Dinner with Einstein." Much better than "review Jones file," "do consult with deadbeat client," or the dreaded "another fucking meeting with that asshole..."

But first, a mindset shift...

Please take the words "I don't have time," and throw them out the window. You have the time. I have the time. Beyonce has the time. 24 hours in a day, 168 days in a week, other math numbers to prove my point...we all have the SAME amount of time.

Instead take ownership that you aren't SPENDING the time required for X (if you're like me, up until last year, usually I didn't make time for my health). With that caveat, 1) we are empowered to make changes in our own life to get the outcomes we want and 2) we are ready to dive in to my top 5 tips on proper calendar use.

1. Make Sure you Have the Right Calendar(s)

I don't have a calendar...I have calendars, but only 2 (okay really 3 but I never look at one of them, it just exists on my google account and then gets zapped over). One calendar is synced with my wife (and maybe my parents if they know how to access it) for all our family escapades, and another for everything else under the sun—from business meetings to brief moments of zen and trashy Netflix movies. This approach ensures that my kid doesn't get left somewhere AND that I’m never double-booked unless it's one group of friends at Topgolf and another at Pickleball at the same time...

Then I have booking links that check my calendar so people can autobook for 15, 30, or 60 minutes all without 700 back and forths before we realize we are in different time zones.

2. If It's Not Scheduled, It Doesn't Exist

Every task, every to-do, every fleeting thought to pick up food for dinner from the store gets a slot on my calendar. I realized that for me, a to-do list was basically pointless (like Indiana Jones in Raiders)...but calendaring the things I needed to do was AMAZING (like Indiana Jones in Temple of Doom).

Pro-tip - calendar travel time for in-person things so you don't end up with a meeting until 12 and a lunch across town at the same time and you can't teleport like Nightcrawler.

Master-tip - calendar time to just sit and think (maybe in a hot tub or during a massage) I promise you...thinking through things is worth the time when you SPEND the time on it. I often will have 5-10 questions that I am tossing around in my head that I can work on during these times.

Extra-tip - also calendar time to do NOTHING (or to do whatever you want to do). I don't work Tuesday and Friday, it's great. I blocked those days off of my calendar and magically nothing gets booked for those days now except working out, massages, theme parks or hanging with my friends who can also get out of work randomly during the day.

3. Delegate to Elevate

My assistant is like Alfred to my Batman here, adding all the necessary details to each calendar event.

Need to review a document or videos? They're attached.

Got a video to watch? The link’s waiting for me.

Writing a newsletter (META, I KNOW!!!) well there's a document attached to that calendar event with all my prior newsletters AND ideas for future ones.

It’s all about making each calendar entry a one-stop info shop AND each event is set for the time we think it will take (we are often wrong...that's totally fine, we learn from it).

4. (Omega) Red and Blue (Beetle)

My calendar looks like the American flag. The stuff with my kid is white (or maybe light yellow), the hard, non-negotiable meetings? They’re in red, signaling "Stop, important!" These are the client meetings and big-league discussions that anchor my day.

Then there’s the blue—these are the shiftable bits of my day. Writing this newsletter, review documents, internal 1 on 1 meetings that can be held flexibly.

This way, if something cancels or goes quicker than I expected I can grab the next thing like Dr. Strange manipulating the time stone.

And if the reverse happens, I (or my assistant) can slide those blue-coded tasks to another day faster than you can say "seriously the Spiderman team up and Aunt May's death is just because of Dr. Strange' hubris."

5. Keep Making it Better...like Rambo 2, Empire Strikes Back, and Nightmare on Elm Street 3

So what do I do with my never ending (story) of to-dos before they get on my calendar? They live in a document called either business ideas (a full body suit with water in coils that move around every time you step for walking outside when Florida is the surface of Alderaan hot, creative ideas (why yes I do want to write a book about aliens crash landing in some guys backyard as a marketing parable), or someday maybe (becoming a certified cannoneer so I can shoot the cannons at St. Augustine's Castillo de San Marcos).

Those show up every month during my monthly meeting with my assistant for us to decide what to move to the calendar to actually get done.

And then we ALSO meet every week for 30 minutes to make sure we didn't miss anything from the last week not being done, and work on our timing of how long certain tasks actually take.

So, whether you’re looking to manage a mountain of meetings or just trying to find time to make it home for dinner, consider giving your calendar a quantum leap forward. Who knows? It might just be your ticket to a smoother, more organized life—or at least make you feel a bit like the people from the TVA/Loki at the end of the show and less like Loki at the beginning of that show.

And seriously, if you're struggling with this...let's chat. I am here to help.

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