Why You Should Spring Clean Your Calendar

Wednesdays are simplicity days at SimpleProductivity blog.

We all have visions of spring cleaning as it involves our living quarters. Get down to the bare walls, clean everything, and have a fresh start.

Most people don’t realize, though, that you should do the same thing to your calendar. Today we will look at why and how you should spring clean your calendar.

How It Becomes Cluttered

Things end up on your calendar from a bunch of sources. If you are using paper, you might see things you wrote on that are no longer on those days because of a schedule shift or changed interests (such as a child leaving a sports team).

On electronic calendars, it is even easier to accumulate non-relevant information. Perhaps there are co-worker’s appointments, or calendars you subscribed to that no longer help, or even repeating events you put in that you can’t seem to get rid of.

Your calendar may also be cluttered with meetings for committees, organizations or groups that are no longer your first priority.

What It Means When It Is Cluttered

When your calendar is cluttered, it can mean three things:

1. You can’t see what is truly important
2. You can’t see how busy you are
3. You don’t have room for things that are top priority

Your important activities may be lost in the noise of unimportant activities. When your calendar is cluttered with useless or low-priority information, you might not see a way to get the important ones into the schedule.

If you get used to lots of no-value activities and what is essentially calendar spam on your calendar, you might not see your blocks of free time. Or even worse, something important could get lost in the static.

Why You Should Clean Your Calendar

Cleaning your calendar has two great benefits: you get to see only those things that you have to be at, and they are in line with what is important to you.

Removing no- and low-value activities gives you the space to work on and enjoy things that have value to you.

How To Clean Your Calendar

Since there are essentially two types of clutter on the calendar, we will look at how to get rid of both.

The no-value activities. These are essentially calendar spam, that represent things that might have been important at one point, but provide no value now. To get rid of these, get into your calendar and start deleting. If you have subscribed to other calendars that are polluting your calendar, unsubscribe or turn them off. Look for repeating events that have gone awry, and delete the whole series.

Activities not in line with your priorities. We all get involved in activities and after a period, they may no longer fit our lives or priorities. For example, if you are a PTA member at your child’s school, you may not want to continue it after your child leaves school. Think about which of your activities is no longer interesting, relevant or useful. It takes a bit more effort to get rid of these activities, especially if it is something others are counting on.

Conclusion

Clearing out your calendar not only gives you the ability to see past calendar spam, but it allows you to look at what is going on.

Reader challenge: when was the last time you cleaned out your calendar? Remove one activity – either calendar spam or one that is not in line with your priorities – today.

Photo by planeta. Licensed under Creative Commons.