You don’t need us to tell you how busy you are. No matter what stage of business you’re in, or how long you’ve been doing it, there are always more plates to keep spinning. People and tasks will always be demanding your time, and it’s your job to stay on top of it all. If you don’t, it can make your life harder and send the wrong signals to your customers and colleagues. So, how do you do it? There are, generally speaking, two options – use an app like Calendly, or hire a VA. But which is the better option? We’re here to help you decide. But first…
What Is Calendly?
To put it in a nutshell (or an eggshell, it is nearly Easter after all), Calendly is a bit of software that allows people to book meetings with you. It cuts out the back and forth of emails and lets clients see when you’re available, and choose a meeting time that works best for you. They can even book the meeting directly into your calendar. Isn’t that neat!
It’s exploded in popularity over the last few years, particularly with smaller business owners who want to free up a bit of their time. If you’re a bigger business then you get more functionality, like team-based scheduling, workflows and integrations with your CRM, and even take payments for events you’re running. But of course, the price goes up for that kind of functionality.
The good news is, they do have a free plan, which allows you to create one type of event that people can book with you, and you can connect one calendar to it to manage your availability. It also has very limited integrations, so it’s definitely not the all-singing, all-dancing version.
Sounds Great – What Are the Downsides?
Calendly can do a lot of things. And if you’re on a very tight budget, then their free plan might be a good way for you to get started. But there are some negatives to using an app like Calendly.
Firstly, it actually makes more work for you. You need to create the event types people can book for you (think meetings, conference calls, coaching sessions etc). That takes a lot of time. You then have to customise your booking page and choose which calendar to sync it with. If you have more than one calendar in your life (for example, a business one and a personal one), you’ll need to sync all of them. If you don’t, it will show you as ‘available’ for meetings at times when you aren’t, which can cause a whole lot of headaches!
That’s one of the biggest downsides of systems like Calendly. You have to give them access to a lot of information before they can work effectively. And if you have something to do that isn’t in your calendar? Then you need to go in and manually block out that time within Calendly. Since Calendly works by offering people time slots when you are free, you have to carefully manage it to make it effective. It can be done, but if you don’t want to share your personal calendars (or give access to it) with the system, then it causes a whole lot of problems.
How is a VA Better?
Simple. A VA is a human being. That means we understand all of the difficulties that calendars and scheduling can bring, and the best ways to deal with them. Not only can they help you manage your calendar, but they can help you organise your working life better – and your personal life if that’s what you want. Yes, a VA can absolutely schedule all of your meetings for you, but they can also:
Help You Prioritise: Va’s use a magical system to help you prioritise what events are most important for you. Doing this means they can organise your calendar effectively, knowing what can and can’t be moved. We usually ask you to tell us about all of the things usually in your diary, and categorise each one into one of the following:
- Urgent and important: Things that you and only you can deal with, and that need immediate attention.
- Important but not urgent: Things that require your attention, but you can schedule them for a bit later on.
- Urgent but not important: Things that other people can do, or you can delegate to someone else to handle.
- Neither important or urgent: Things that you shouldn’t be doing at all. Busy work that’s distracting from your productive time.
Optimise Your Work Hours: A VA can find out when your preferred working times and meeting times are, your VA can optimise your working hours to suit your schedule. This could include scheduling meetings during your preferred time of day, taking calls for you and only putting them through when they fit your schedule (dealing with them for you any other time), and making sure your schedule doesn’t get overloaded or double booked.
Make Meetings More Productive: Everyone works best at different times and in different situations. A VA can ask you what your preferences are, so they can avoid booking meetings into those critical times. For example, you can tell them:
- The times of day you prefer to have meetings.
- How long you would like meetings to last. Remember that not all meetings need to last an hour, and you can save a lot of time with shorter meetings.
- How much buffer time you want between meetings. Back-to-back meetings are often more wearing and can get you behind schedule, so scheduling in some buffer time can be a lifesaver.
- When you want to block out time without meetings, so that you can focus on getting ‘deep’ work done.
- If you need to schedule in preparation time before a meeting.
This way they can organise your calendar to meet all of those things, so your day -to-day can run much more smoothly and your meetings will be much more efficient.
At Your Admin Hub, we love everything to do with organisation. Sorting out a hectic diary into neatly segmented perfection is like crack to us, and you’re the one who gets to see all the benefits. If you’re looking for a way to wrangle the diary and take back more control of your time, we would love to help you. Just get in touch with us today, and let’s get a coffee in the diary. It’s the last appointment you’ll need to put in yourself!