Google Apps Calendar Best Practices
If you only have your schedule to worry about, then your calendaring can be merely personal and a point solution. However, if you are seeking a high level of collaboration with a team, Google Calendar is extremely powerful for coordinating the changing commitments of daily execution. Here are four tips which we share from our Google Apps Consulting best practices:
- Drive Commitment: We live in the attention economy. When there is a need for focus to drive actions as a group or make decisions, invite users via Google Calendar. Avoid the back and forth and lead by using the invite feature to force an Accept or a Decline. This will nail a time down.
- Describe The Outcome: Use the description field for the agenda and meeting outcome. Lead by numbering what will be discussed and the decisions and actions to come out of it.
- Block Time: Your team should be seeing each other’s color-coded calendars. You can toggle these for viewing. To ensure your time is respected, block out times you will need not only for meeting commitments but for personal productivity work such as writing an article or working on a project. This helps others coordinate with you reliably.
- Integrate: Your online Google Apps Calendar is a hub. It is a cloud-based system which can integrate with multiple systems. Your CRM system, website appointment scheduling, website public pages and your mobile device update with the data in specific ways. Ensure your team’s systems are strategically integrated to drive syndication quickly.
Using Google Apps Calendar effectively can remove friction from your business processes and focus your team on execution. Furthermore, it can allow partners and customers to collaborate if you have the right systems setup and processes. Happy scheduling.
