The Value of an Upcoming Calendar Review
Knowing the terrain before you can help you advance more confidently.
David Allen counsels us to think of our calendar as a map of “the ‘hard landscape’ of things that have to get done on a specific day or at a specific time.” The scheduled events and deadlines on your calendar are fixtures “around which you do the rest of your actions.”
Allen advises us to do a weekly “upcoming calendar” review to familiarize ourselves with that terrain, enhance our situational awareness, anticipate any landmines or other obstacles, and plot our route through our coming days:
“Look at further calendar entries (long- and short-term). Capture actions about projects and preparations required for upcoming events. Your calendar is one of the best checklists to review regularly, to prevent last-minute stress and trigger creative front-end thinking. Upcoming travel, conferences, meetings, holidays, etc. should be assessed for projects…”
First, read through each calendar entry with note-taking tools at hand. Ask yourself if you have to do anything about that event and record the answer.
Is it a project coming due? If it’s a meeting, should you draft an agenda? Do you want to prepare talking points? Do you need to review a document or complete a deliverable that will be discussed? If it’s something complicated, like a trip or a party, do you need to make and implement plans? Does the item tangentially remind you of anything else you’d like to do?
Make sure to get the results of your review into your task management system.
A weekly upcoming calendar review shines a light onto the terrain ahead, eases our anxiety about blindly stumbling into pitfalls, helps us to plot our path, and empowers us to take each step with confidence.
Looking ahead to the future once a week can help us spend the rest of the week more fully living in the present.