As I’ve mentioned before, there is a wealth of exceptional tools available digitally nowadays. Functionality, efficiency, organization; all of these are improved and enhanced by use of select programs like apps, Excel, and one of my personal favorites: the Calendar in Outlook.

The Calendar is so much more versatile than a desk or wall calendar. Penciling in important dates, meetings, appointments, etc can get time consuming and confusing when you have to start rearranging and rescheduling based on your packed schedule. Having a really functional digital calendar takes the erratic aspects out, and allows you to keep it all together, editing where you need to.

I don’t know about you, but for me personally, having my day-to-day time management and organization running at full speed makes my life easier. The Calendar in Outlook is one of these assets that makes handling so many aspects of my moving business really effective and I highly recommend it to others in running their businesses. Here are some of the best aspects of using Outlook and its Calendar:

  • Seamless Integration with Office: These two programs are like siblings who play very well together. All the basics of Office are already there in Outlook, so it’s just a few minor tweaks you’re going to have to get used to in order to learn how to use the Calendar. It’s really simple regardless.
  • Security: The junk mail filtration efforts of Outlook are great for those of us accustomed to a high level of inbox influx, while filtering out the undesirables like the web bugs and data from foreign sites.
  • Not just Email: If you didn’t know, now you do; Outlook is a multifaceted program that offers way more than just email. In fact, you don’t even need to use it with email, if you prefer! It can often replace such mundane tasks as company meetings where little is accomplished; getting group votes in writing on matters (simple or complex) easily with minimal effort or interruption, and making the most out of all the possibilities of email in an office environment.
  • Easily Tailored: The Calendar is easily tailored to your specifications, as needed. If you have recurring meetings every Tuesday, they can be accounted for with the Recurrence command.
  • Need hard copies? Calendars can be printed.

For meetings, with either employees or other business associates, I am especially fond of the “meeting” function. Using this aspect allows me to coordinate the best meeting times for everyone involved, and enables us to have a running dialogue on meetings with as few issues as possible. To use it, here is the simplest way I have found to send out invites:

  1. Head to the File menu, select NEW.
  2. Click MEETING REQUEST to open the meeting request form.
  3. You can also hit CONTROL + SHIFT + Q via anywhere in Outlook as a quick shortcut to the Meeting Request form.
  4. That’s it! Now, you should be able to write your meeting’s title in the subject line. Be concise and straightforward regarding what the meeting will be about to get your point across quickly and without confusion.

Having a well-organized system for communicating can take a lot of the meaningless busy work out of your day. So, are you ready to implement the Outlook Calendar into your daily life? I absolutely recommend this tool for maximizing your business’s functionality and productivity in managing daily organization challenges.