How to Create a Time Buffer

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Do you ever feel like you could use a time buffer in your busy schedule?

Are you looking for tips to make the time buffer scheduling process simple and easy for yourself?

A time buffer is a brief amount of time between calendar entries.

When properly added to a calendar or schedule, a time buffer can cushion the blow of circumstances beyond your control, help you stay on schedule, and keep you cool, calm, and collected.

Time buffers can be true lifesavers.

They can give you a few extra minutes of breathing room when you’re stuck sitting in traffic or frantically searching for a misplaced wallet at home.

In this blog post, you’ll find a simple three-step process to help you create at time buffer in your work or home calendar.

Would you like to have a few solitary minutes to yourself to collect your thoughts, catch your breath, review your schedule, and “put yourself back together” again?

If so, then you’ll definitely want to consider adding time buffers to your schedule.

The following tips will help you create a time buffer at a moment’s notice!

How to Create a Time Buffer

Choose an appointment to buffer

To get the most out of your buffer experience, you’ll want to consciously select a single appointment or meeting.

Unsure as to which appointment you should buffer?

You can take a look at your calendar for some clues.

For example, do you have a standing daily, weekly, or monthly appointment that always seems to be hurried?

Conversely, do you find yourself rushed at the beginning or end of an appointment?

These are all great places to start.

Don’t have a recurring meeting in your schedule?

Try looking for an appointment in which you always feel stressed, flustered, or anxious, especially when it comes to arriving on time or composing yourself before the meeting begins.

Identify a specific amount of buffer time

Now, one of the worst things you can do when setting a time buffer is to make a sweeping generalization.

For instance, you may think, “I only need a few extra minutes to get from my house to the office when traffic is bad.”

That’s all well and good, but just how many minutes are a few extra minutes?

Is it five minutes? Ten minutes? Fifteen or thirty minutes more?

Be sure to specify an exact amount of time for your buffer.

It will be easier to schedule into your calendar, plus doing so makes it easy to remember the duration of time.

If you know it takes you twenty minutes to drive to work, you might consider tacking on a ten-minute time buffer each day in case of traffic delays, poor weather, or unforeseen car trouble.

Set your time buffer right away.

Avoid waiting until the last-minute to schedule a time buffer.

No procrastinating: the longer you wait, the less scheduling time you’ll have available to you.

What’s more, you’ll have less time overall for your time buffer.

Get in the habit of dropping a time buffer into your calendar whenever you book an appointment or meeting.

You can write the word “buffer” or any word or phrase you so desire into your calendar.

What matters the most is that you set your time buffer in the first place!

How about you? Where will you add in a time buffer in your schedule? Do you already practice adding in time buffers into your calendar? Join in 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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