From Calendar Blocking to Task Prioritization: 5 Ways to Make the Most Out of Your Scheduling Software

The importance of time management

When you run a business, you’ll quickly gain a keen awareness of time. In the pursuit of productivity, your relationship with time will become adversarial. Time limits the amount of work that can be done and the amount of business that can be had. Time management is the greatest factor that affects productivity. Deficiencies in time management can result in missed deadlines, poor prioritization of tasks, and misallocation of personnel, all of which can wreck disastrous financial consequences for your business. Great time management can be the difference between keeping the lights on and closing the doors for good.

There are many ways in which one can approach time management. The most obvious one is through the use of an online calendar to block out time for specific tasks. As a starting point, free calendars such as Google Calendar are great. You’ll be able to color code your tasks for both work and personal life, set reminders, and even perform some light automation such as email invites and meeting notifications. However, there is plenty of software on the market that helps you get a lot more mileage out of these calendars through deeper automation and connectivity, ultimately saving you a great deal more time.

What is a scheduling software?

Scheduling software is simply a program that businesses or individuals can use in order to manage deadlines, projects, appointments, avoid double-bookings, and more. This software is accessible from any device so everyone can stay on top of things. 

What are the benefits of using scheduling software?

Better planning

Calendars were first used by Ancient Sumerians in the Bronze Age. The main reason for using calendars remains the same through thousands of years: planning. Calendars allow us to plan for the future and schedule and allocate time accordingly. It’s difficult to keep track of time in our heads. Scheduling software allows you to perform your most challenging tasks during peak productivity hours and to keep track of dates and deadlines.

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Delegating resources

Leaders of teams need to balance roles, tasks, and deadlines for not only themselves, but for the other members of their team as well. This allows leaders to coordinate meetings that fit into their team’s schedules, communicate with the right team members regarding specific tasks, and track everyone’s productivity to help better identify and address struggle points.

Automating manual tasks

One of the ways that software makes life easier and allows for more efficiency is through automation. Scheduling software allows for the performance of often monotonous, repetitive tasks to be shifted to software, freeing up the time and energy of employees. Many tasks can be automated, including lead distribution, sending meeting reminders, allowing others to schedule appointments according to your availability, customer success outreach, and much more.

Increased efficiency

Scheduling software can track various metrics, allowing for the review of KPIs. Adjustments can be made and planned accordingly into next month’s calendar.

Additionally, efficiency comes in the form of less time spent on worrying about meeting deadlines. If the software tracks all the deadlines for you, everyone is free to focus more on getting their work done. 

Reduce availability conflicts

Scheduling software can highlight open shifts unassigned to employees as well as double bookings, giving business the time to address these scenarios to ensure client satisfaction.

Best scheduling software to try in 2023

Now that you know the advantages, here are just a few scheduling softwares to look out for and maybe even try for yourself this upcoming year.

Calendly

One of the pioneers of this software space, Calendly offers routing forms, team scheduling, analytics, embedding, and even pre-meeting polling to determine the time that works best for everyone involved! 

YouCanBookMe

With customizable booking pages that can be sent or embedded anywhere, YouCanBookMe is a great way to maintain brand consistency while giving customers a smooth, no-back-and-forth process of booking meetings.

QikChat

Not only does QikChat have all the usual bells and whistles of scheduling software from tracking deadlines to sending out automatic appointment reminders, but it also streamlines the process of inbound lead generation. As leads come in, they’re automatically distributed between team members. The client will immediately be given a list of times on the team member’s calendar to book a meeting with just a click, saving time and reducing hassle for everyone. 

Conclusion

Whatever system you use, make sure you get the most value out of it by using as many features as you can. This is especially true when it comes to automation. You want to automate as much as you reasonably can to alleviate burdens from your employees to increase productivity. While scheduling software isn’t going to perfect your time management, it can offer you many tools to improve it. If you’re not using one already, 2023 is the perfect time to start using scheduling software. You’ll see quickly how much time you can save!