Your Calendar: The Key to Your Business' Success

Time. Most of us fight it. Few of us--especially women entrepreneurs--ever feel we have enough of it. We convince ourselves if only we had more of it, we'd write a novel, open that second office or spend the summers in Italy. Yet the only thing keeping us from achieving our goals is our inability to harness our calendar--not the amount of time it contains.

If you often have a tough time managing work while balancing personal and family commitments, use the five-step START approach. It stands for: Start over; turn your hours into units; approach lofty goals with simple schedules; reserve time with blackout dates; and target success with a formula. START can change your calendar from a timekeeper into a strategic partner. In the process, you’ll grow your business without giving up your life.

1. Start over by recreating your calendar.
Rather than add one more to-do to an already cluttered calendar, make a clean break. Redesign it now. Rebuilding your calendar from scratch will help you reassess how you schedule your time to meet your objectives. By starting over, you can design your days instead of simply filling them up. An electronic calendar is preferable to a paper one since recurring activities can easily be scheduled.

2. Turn your hours into "units of time" before you schedule anything.
Whether you’re working out, writing a proposal or attending a business lunch, quantify a standard amount of time for your activities. And don’t forget to build in a cushion for preparation, unexpected interruptions and transitions.

Let’s say you come up with a two-hour block as your standard unit of time. Now, redesign your calendar around two-hour increments. Presuming you sleep eight hours a night, that leaves you with eight two-hour units per day.

Thinking of your day as units of activity--instead of hours--will remind you how many tasks are realistic for you to tackle on a daily basis. Not only will this help you plan your day more wisely, you’ll be less prone to “Superwoman Syndrome”--committing to more than your calendar can hold.

3. Approach your loftiest goals as regularly scheduled activities.
Your grandest dream is likely to remain a dream without a plan of action. Your calendar can be the key, if you use it to work backward from your ultimate goal.

Say you've always wanted to write a book. First, set a vision for the length of the book and a completion date. This'll require you to formally allocate the time on your calendar to focus on the project. Assigning even one unit of time each week to advance a major goal will put you that much closer to achieving your dream.

4. Reserve time with your own blackout dates.
Just as airlines black out prime dates where redeeming frequent flier miles isn't permitted, you can create and schedule personal blackout dates as well. You can use your blackout dates to reserve time for vacation and family events, daily workouts, important business conferences and strategic planning periods.

Don't wait to put these on the calendar; black them all out now. Scheduling your personal commitments and essential business activities for the remainder of the year ensures they don’t get lost in the shuffle. Committing early to blackout dates helps you identify them as non-negotiable and unlikely to be replaced by other activities.

5. Target success with a time formula for action.
If you're like many business owners, you only make money when you're in front of your customers or working with the employees who are in front of your customers. Reducing that process to a formula and plugging it into your calendar can take the uncertainty out achieving your growth goals.

You may already know, for example, how many conversations it takes to generate a proposal and how many proposals it takes to close a sale. Create formulas for activities related to your business goals, enter the time commitment into your calendar and be prepared to watch your business grow.

How you use your calendar may be the ultimate key to personal and business success. As a keeper of to-do lists, the calendar falls far short of its potential to serve you. Turn it into a strategic partner, and you’ll realize your loftiest dreams. Don’t you think it's about time?