4 Ways to Make Sure You Schedule an Appointment into Your Calendar

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Have you ever scheduled an appointment and then failed to add the item to your calendar?

Are you tired of accidentally missing or forgetting about meetings?

Placing an appointment into your calendar is a simple, yet important step in keeping a healthy calendar.

How can you make sure that appointment actually makes it into your schedule?

In this post, you’ll find four practical ways to make sure you add an appointment to your calendar.

Try any one of these tips the next time you need to capture an appointment, but are short on time or available resources.

Enter the appointment into your calendar as soon as possible.

By far the easiest way to ensure an appointment actually makes it to your calendar is to simply schedule it!

It only takes a few brief moments to schedule an appointment into your calendar.

Yes, yes, this small act requires some self-control and you must stop whatever it is you’re doing at the moment in order to create the appointment. But once the appointment is created, you won’t have to worry about it.

The next time you’ve verbally agreed to an appointment, immediately reach for your smart phone or pocket paper planner and enter in the day, time, location, attendees, and purpose of your meeting.

If you have an electronic device with voice recognition abilities, you can ask the voice recognition software to create and add the appointment to your calendar for you.

Create an appointment reminder for yourself.

Sometimes, you don’t have the ability to schedule a meeting directly into your calendar.

You might not have immediate access to your calendar, either because internet or wi-fi connectivity is spotty or non-existent, or you just don’t have your paper planner with you.

In this case, the next best thing is to create an appointment reminder for yourself.

You can do this by any one of the following methods:

  • Write down appointment details on a piece of sticky note, scrap paper, notebook, or meeting agenda.
  • Create a task in your to-do list or reminder app to schedule the appointment.
  • Call and leave a voicemail for yourself on your office, home, or cellphone with the details.
  • Email yourself or create a draft email with the meeting details.
  • Type the appointment details into a text editor.
  • Set a reminder alarm on your watch or smart phone to add the appointment.

Ask someone to send you a meeting request.

Are you familiar with the phrase, “Ask and you shall receive?” Fortunately, this applies to appointments, too!

If you’re in a bind and have to dash off to travel or make another appointment, simply ask your contact to send you a meeting request.

If you both use the same email and calendar program such as Microsoft Outlook or Google Mail and Calendar, they can create a new appointment and send you an invite via email. You can then accept the appointment.

Another way of doing this is to ask them to send you an email confirmation of your appointment.

They can type up a brief email with the all the relevant details including the appointment day, time, location, attendees, and purpose, and send it to you.

Review your schedule at the end of the day.

This tip can be a lifesaver, especially if you’ve been on the go the whole day and have been unable to add an appointment to your calendar.

This mental exercise will help you jog your memory and hopefully spark a memory that you need to add something to your schedule.

Besides, reviewing your schedule at the end of the day helps solidify what took place today, and may also encourage you to take a look at what’s on tap for tomorrow.

The process is quite straightforward: in the evening (or whenever you’re finished with your day) open up your calendar for that very day. Next, you’re going to mentally walk through your day, carefully reviewing everything that happened.

Go through each hour carefully, one by one, remembering everything you possibly can. For example, where did you travel to that day?

What appointments and meetings did you attend? On which tasks and projects did you work on? What did you write in your notes? With whom did you meet or speak?

With luck, something might grab you and remind you of an appointment you need to add to your schedule!

How about you? Which of these tips will you follow to schedule an appointment into your calendar? Join the conversation and leave a comment below!

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About the Author

Rashelle

Rashelle Isip is a New York City-based productivity consultant who helps successful entrepreneurs and business owners manage their time and energy so they can reduce stress, work less, and make more money in their businesses. She has been featured in Fast Company, Forbes, NBC News, The Washington Post, NPR, and The Atlantic. Get her free guide, 5 Unexpected Things You Need to Organize a Work Notebook, by clicking here.

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