How I Use My Calendar to Manage Projects
- November 15, 2023
- Posted by: MainInstructor
- Category: Go Project Management
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Video Title: How I Use My Calendar to Manage Projects
Using your calendar to manage a project from the brainstorming stage to its completion stage is just the most affordable and the quickest option project managers are great but they can be expensive or too complicated to use or you might just not like using them I’ve created my own set of rules
After years and years of managing and tracking my projects on my calendar basically everything from tracking progress making sure I’m achieving all of my Milestones subdividing my tasks into AC able items Etc and today I want to take you along in this five-step process by the end of this video you’ll
Know how to successfully plan any project just by using a digital calendar I’ve also provided a visual guide for your framework at the end of this video which you can use when planning for a future project in your calendar so let’s get started let’s be honest when you’re
Using a calendar to manage a project instead of a project management software you can’t use any setup you have to remember that ideally a calendar is used to keep track of events and timed assignments and if you’re a calendar blocker your tasks for the day keeping an entire project alive inside your
Calendar means you need to pay some extra detail to some things when it comes to the calendar you’re using don’t stress too much about it Google Calendar is free and has enough tools and workaround to help you do this tic tick is also a fantastic and affordable alternative which I’ve been
Using a lot of personally this video was recorded using ACU flow who’s sponsoring today’s video and which is geared towards productivity power users using several apps like notion project management software different email clients other calendars slack units what matters is that you’re feeling comfortable with the calendar
That you’re using and that your choice of calendar has all of the tools and features that are essential for your own specific workflow first of all make sure you’re keeping One calendar per project this will take a bit of effort but it’s essential that you’re able to completely
Isolate each project inside One calendar not only will this allow you to isolate each project by hiding other concurring projects but it will be incredibly handy to quickly pinpoint the tasks for one specific project because it will have a color completely different from all of your other projects if there’s someone
Else you’re working with for this project make sure you are sharing the calendar with them so they can have access to the entire timeline on their end as well this will ensure there are no communication mistakes and everything is assigned properly it’s also a good way to make sure you have someone else
Checking if all major milestones and deadlines are correctly recorded okay so now you have picked your calendar software of choice you have created One calendar per project and now you’re ready to start with the planning process itself so let’s go to task names so let’s move on to how you should
Be scheduling your tasks this is actually an incredibly common question that people have when should you actually schedule a task should you schedule a task for its deadline or should you schedule a task for your initiation stage or when you should start that task instead of ending that
Task while the answer is simple you schedule both you schedule a task for the date it needs to be completed and you set another task for the date you want to start working on that task that way you’ll have your project clearly mapped out in your calendar and you’ll
Never miss task initiation because your calendar will send you a reminder to get started after you’ve created your calendar make sure you already have a task list with subtasks available to start populating your calendar make sure these are ordered by completion date remember to number your tasks because
You’re relying solely on your calendar you want to make sure that when you find a task in your calendar you know exactly where you are in your project timeline so number your tasks let’s imagine that task number one is researching and planning and that task has three subtasks analyze current
Website conduct market research and gather feedback from stakeholders as you add those tasks to your calendar make sure you use numbering to show dependencies so those three subtasks need to be completed for the researching and planning stage to be complete as well use emojis to show whether a task
Is dependent on other task in dependently of your calendar software of choice emojis are almost Universal so it’s almost guaranteed you can use them in a classy way to further parse your tasks I like to use this Arrow to identify a task that depends on the completion of a previous task and this
Icon to identify a task that can start anytime in the project timeline without relying on previous tasks also use emojis to Mark Milestones Milestones are special moments in your project timeline that Advance your project for instance getting approval from a m or a supervisor is a huge milestone
Completion of an initial testing phase is also Milestone and I like to identify these major milestones in my calendar with this symbol okay so by this point you have already populated your calendar with all Milestones tasks and subtasks required to finish your project you’re also using symbols to identify whether a task can
Be completed on its own or if a task requires other tasks to be completed or started in order to start your second task you’ve also clearly identified The crucial milestones in your project and you’re making sure that you’re starting your tasks ahead of time instead of getting surprised by the tasks due
Date I highly recommend you to create some sort of description templates to apply to all of your tasks in your calendar as you’re adding them in here’s the suggested template you can State the estimated duration so X hours or X days an objective where you briefly describe
The primary goal or purpose of the task all task dependencies so list any tasks or events this task is dependent on any resources needed like tools software equipments documents and information you can also add a description that provides a detailed description of the task including what needs to be accomplished
How it contributes to the overall project and any Specific Instructions or steps to be followed you should also add your deliverables so basically what outputs are expected upon task completion and any notes comments links or references that are relevant for that specific task while the first layer of any
Project planning on your calendar will be the breakdown of Milestones tasks and subtasks required for that project to be complete you can’t forget there’s a vast array of support tasks and events you need to add in as well to make sure that everything goes smoothly for instance manually create buffers between tasks or
At the end of your project do not pack tasks back back to back keep some buffer time for unforeseen delays or issues and Mark these buffers with this symbol also set weekly or monthly reviews to go through your project evaluate completed tasks move and finish tasks and monitor
Project progress whether this is weekly or monthly depends on the complexity of your project and the amount of moving Parts you’re handling the more complex a project is the more it will need to be reviewed so Mark these reviews with this symbol and when it comes to tracking and
Communicating with other people using a calendar instead of a project management tool requires you to be a bit more flexible with how you share information for instance if you have optimized your task description as we’re suggesting this video with links resources and other details by sharing that task with
Someone else that team member will have access to all of those details as well and this will help your team stay on track and aware of the progress of your project even if you’re using separate calendar accounts so here is your five-step framework work you have created a
Calendar in your software of choice and shared that with your team you’ve populated your calendar with all tasks subtasks and Milestones required to finish your project you’ve successfully used the symbol code to identify whether a task needs another task to be completed or started or if a task can be
Completed on its own you also clearly identify the crucial moments in your project you’ve also created the necessary reminders to make sure you’re starting your tasks ahead of time and not getting surprised by an unexpected deadline in your timeline then you’ve also added a template description to
Each one of your tasks with details on deliverables links and references resources and goals and dependencies you’ve made sure to create weekly or monthly project reviews in your timeline as well as creating task buffers and the final project buffer to take into account any unexpected events so that
Means you’re ready to get started with your project as I mentioned in the beginning of the video you can count on active flow to help you with all of the project planning in your calendar and if You’ been subscribed for a while you know I’ve mentioned aif flow in other video
Where I call it one of the best alternatives for Google Calendar right now what aif flow does differently from other calendar apps is that it consolidates tasks and information from many different productivity apps in one place only this guarantees you’re not missing information in an app somewhere
And you don’t have to constantly switch between different productivity apps and if you’re usually assigned tasks from multiple productivity apps you know how useful this is you’re already nodding on your own side of the screen aif flow pulls all of your slack messages emails notion updates new meetings being
Scheduled in Zoom Trav notifications into one universal inbox dramatically cutting the noise and helping you just get your work done very quickly it also allows you to capture tasks via command bar and organize them with lists tags and using your calendar view if you have multiple things going on in multiple
Platforms ACU flow is a great candidate to replace your entire productivity system because once again it does a great job at Gathering all of your tasks in one place only if you want to check out aif flow please click the link in the description box below to get your project planning
Started I really hope you’ve enjoyed this video and I’ll will see you next week bye Guys
Video Keywords: Project Management, [vid_tags]
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Please make a video on Law school ❤❤❤
This is an amazing piece. And you know what? The title doesn't give it justice. I think that something like "How I use a calendar as a project manager tool" would make a difference. Just slight different but more on point. In my opinion!
It's a really great content.
Akiflow actually supports something called "parity purchasing power" which means people from third world countries like me (South Africa) get 50% discount off of all plans permanently. I think that's pretty cool.
Mariana – Well-thought out system. Excellent video on it.
It strikes me that it is more applicable for work projects, and less for personal projects. My sense is that personal projects are less about "scheduling" tasks and more about "sequencing" tasks. In that case, I think a "To Do List" app would be more effective. (Apple Reminders is a good choice.)
If you think it worthwhile, please consider designing such a personal project management system and developing a video on it.
Thanks for considering.
Mariana, você é incrível! ❤
I use Asana at work and this video is definitely going to help me use that better!
Am i only person experience or feel that none of the Mariana Videos provides what or how can achieve her great ideas?? It's good to watch the video, but nothing to take away to put together to use in our lives. I would appreciate to put together a template or steps with tools to achive
calendar tips ,
It's a pity that Aki Flow is SO EXPENSIVE!
Amo seus vídeos! sempre me acalmam e me inspiram a me organizar mais.
🧡🧡🧡
love your style of videos!! 😊 they are so fun to watch
This channel is real gold ❤🙏
Thanks Mariana for sharing as always 🙏
Nice
This is so helpful! Thank you!