A Guide for Entrepreneurs

Calendar planners have replaced traditional planners and journals with enhanced efficiency and convenience. These planners might seem like any to-do creators and reminders to a layperson. However, there is a lot more to these than just adding tasks.

In this blog, we will share some of the best tips and tricks for using a planner to optimize your business performance from the perspective of entrepreneurs.

1. Understand Your Business Goals

Understand Your Business Goals

What happens when you go to do the groceries without a list? The same happens to a business without clear goals: you spend on unnecessary things without a sense of direction. Sadly, this lack of direction and haphazard work reflects on everything you do or use.

Using a calendar planner for entrepreneurs like a professional is very important to understand your business and what you expect to accomplish from it. Not only is this crucial for daily business planning and operations, but this sense of direction also lets you plan relevant tasks in your planner application.

With clear business goals in mind, you will know what needs to be done. Consequently, you can employ a calendar planner to plan, add tasks and reminders, and stay in the loop with your peer activities without getting lost or distracted from the main path.

For example, a marketing agency aims to improve the outreach of its client’s products to its target audience. Their relevant activities will revolve around creating effective marketing campaigns, employing expert marketing teams, strategizing marketing efforts, identifying key areas, and more.

2. Choose the Right Calendar Planner

Choose the Right Calendar Planner

If you genuinely want to make the most of your planner, first pay attention to the planner itself. Now hundreds of calendar planners are available online, promising productivity and organized workflow. But the million-dollar question is, how do you select an exclusive entrepreneur calendar planner?

Calendar planners nowadays cater to a variety of needs. There are those with a highly professional layout for corporate users. Others take a step ahead and add a gamer’s experience to the entire idea of task planning. Some have a simple layout, while others try to fit everything into one application.

Specifically for businesses and freelancers, we suggest you pay more attention to the features instead of the layout. Always choose a calendar planner that includes tasks and subtasks. Subtasks are an excellent way of categorizing jobs and adding little details related to the main job.

Moreover, you can also look for a productivity planner that allows you to prioritize tasks or set high-impact tasks. Setting high-impact tasks is a type of task management that is a powerful tool for those who wish to accomplish more in a given time. 

If you are a high achiever who stays on top of your game, go for a planner with progress tracking. Progress tracking is an excellent feature that presents an overview of all your process time, where you have invested your time, or how much you have accomplished in a set time.

3. Setup Your Business Calendar

Setup Your Business Calendar

Before adding your personal or individual tasks or reminders, add all holidays and important dates to your calendar.

As business owners and freelancers, we are so absorbed in the work that we neglect or forget holidays or other important events. As a result, we overlook opportunities to unwind and relax. However, there are other purposes for adding holidays and events beforehand.

Setting up a calendar planner for entrepreneurs and freelancers is the perfect start. Several entrepreneurs work with international clients based in different time zones and countries. Meetings, business transactions, and other matters progress as per their local calendar.

Adding their relevant holidays and events and your own to your calendar will give you a better idea of working days and holidays to avoid inconveniences from both sides. As a result, you can plan better and schedule things more efficiently.

4. Add Multiple Tasks

Add Multiple Tasks

The best thing about calendar applications is that you can add multiple tasks for your different activities. Unlike paper planners with limited space, planner applications let users add as many tasks and reminders as they wish. Even better, you can add tasks, reminders, events, lists, and journal entries freely.

It is imperative to utilize the potential of such excellent applications fully. Therefore, keep adding whatever work comes to your mind. But instead, we suggest adding them to your calendar planner, even if it seems unnecessary or mundane. They will come in handy, and you will realize their importance later.

Smart planners include journals too. People who like to make journal entries can better understand what a blessing this feature is. We recommend adding journal entries, too, so you can stay connected with your work and unwind by transferring thoughts to words.

From something urgent such as an upcoming meeting with a potential investor, or something simple such as picking clothes from the dry cleaner, add your to-do tasks regularly. This will streamline your workflow, and a clear and “free” head will have better potential to focus on things that matter most.

5. Categorize Your Tasks

Categorize Your Tasks

This tip is for all business owners. However, it is essential for entrepreneurs and freelancers who have a lot to handle in their daily routines. For example, have you ever looked at the entrepreneur calendar planner? You might have noticed countless haphazard, uncategorized tasks and reminders in that case.

To effectively utilize calendar planners for streamlined business operations, we recommend adding whatever tasks you wish. Only make sure to categorize your tasks according to their relevant segments. For instance, you should have different categories of work-related tasks, personal goals, domestic reminders, and events.

How you categorize your tasks is totally up to you. For example, you can separate tasks based on their type, such as reminders, events, meetings, and to-do. Or, you can categorize them according to their area, such as work, home, or personal. Whatever sorting you choose, adding tasks in relevant categories and revisiting them is crucial.

6. Set Priorities

Set Priorities

All work is essential. Making your bed in the morning is vital, and attending the scheduled meeting is equally important. Eating a healthy breakfast is as important as lunch with investors. Therefore, countless people, especially business owners, cram their journals with all “important” work.

However, if you pause and reflect, you will realize that some jobs are a step ahead of others regarding their importance. Or they have a higher impact than others. By completing these tasks, you can accomplish more at the same time. Therefore, task prioritization is crucial to streamlining your business.

For example, you have a report to prepare that must be sent to a potential client tomorrow. Additionally, you have a team meeting and follow-up with your vendor. On the surface, all these tasks are equally important. However, you can only complete one thing at a time. Otherwise, you will have a pile of incomplete tasks at the end of the day.

The best way out is to define the priority level for every task. Then, see which jobs will have the most impact if completed first. If you are halfway through your report, that is fine. Otherwise, you must pay more attention to this task as it will attract a new client and demand more time. The other tasks can be delegated to a team member or completed next.

Calendar planners for entrepreneurs include features for adding priorities to jobs. Tasks set on high priority are reminded of first. We recommend all users use this feature frequently. Let your applications assist you in more streamlined business processes and better efficiency.

7. Enable Notifications

Enable Notifications

Sometimes, notifications are the bitter pills we swallow because they have immense short-term and long-term benefits. Although the constant notifications are distracting and unnerving, they are for our own good.

Suppose you want your calendar planner to streamline your business and be the perfect personal secretary. In that case, you must enable notifications for these applications on your devices. Adjust your settings to allow your planners to bypass settings such as power saving mode or do not disturb where notifications from apps are blocked.

By enabling your calendar notifications, your calendar planner for entrepreneurs keeps you connected with your daily tasks and minimizes the chances of procrastination and wiggling out of responsibilities. It is only human to want to lay off work for later or indulge in instead time-wasters activities. These notifications are a reality check and a jerk into the “responsible” world where you must work first and then rest.

8. Share and Collaborate

Share and Collaborate

We tend to forget that more than one person is running a business. They might not be the owners, but they are essential to the team. Therefore, keeping them in the loop and sharing all major and minor progress with them is the key to streamlining your business.

Constant meetings and updates are not only tricky but also consume considerable time. As a result, professional experts advise against constant meetings to improve business productivity. However, not conducting meetings does not mean team members must miss out on essential details.

A calendar planner for entrepreneurs can be a helpful tool in ensuring all progress is shared and collaborated among all team members. Go for a planner that allows you to add team members and includes the sharing features so you share progress with them. 

Add hierarchies and roles for each team member. Hierarchies and team roles are excellent ways to have real-time insight into activities and progress from people based on their specific departments or job descriptions.

A shareable calendar planner for entrepreneurs allows all users to connect better. For example, they can share messages, update job statuses, and identify roadblocks. All these activities ensure streamlined business processes.

The TakeAway

Calendar planners are an absolute lifesaver these days. They let you add tasks and reminders and stay in the loop with all your business activities. The right calendar planner will help to improve the productivity of your business and allow you to achieve better results in less time. 

A reliable calendar planner can kickstart and boost your productivity, so we suggest you opt for Week Plan. Our feature-rich layout ensures you have all the essential features that can optimize your business performance. Contact us now to discover more about our planners and identify which of our countless planners will best suit your needs. 

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