Did you know that there is no tool for effective time management in 2016?

I could not believe so, too, until I asked myself: WTF are you doing today?

Listen, I’ve got three calendars: ① personal (Google Calendar), ② business (Outlook) and ③ personal-business (Google Calendar).

Obviously, just calendars don’t cut it so I also use ④ FollowUpThen for email follow ups (that I know I need an answer for, but hate to remember to follow up) — and this is used on all my email accounts.

Then I have my Inbox ⑤ “non zero” policy, by having emails that demand attention there. (I hate that, by the way.)

Last, but not least, I use ⑥ RememberTheMilk every day. Every day is filled with tasks, assigned to the day.

Do you feel my pain or am I just so different?

The question: why can’t I see and manage my day/week/month commitments from a single view?

Seriously. If you need your time management to work well, and you are not single calendar user (hard to be believe nowadays), there are lots of rules you have to follow.

1. Scheduling. You need to make sure your schedule accounts for your personal & business commitments. Picking just one calendar for that is not going to work. I don’t want to keep my drop off my trousers at dry cleaner in my business calendar (because there are things that better remain private — you can have your own peeve like interviews or use of business time for personal errands (I know!)).
2. Actual work. Need to do something? Huh. To plan your work time, you either bulk reserve time in your calendar as a work time (which is suboptimal), or create every task as an event in calendar, assigning to time & duration. However, managing this is a nightmare (postponing, daily review, what’s completed or not — hell, no!). I just click p or c in my RTM, or add a new task Do this & that tomorrow =30 mins — and it does magically work.
3. Feedback. Nothing will change if you don’t change your routine. You need a feedback loop. Postponed something too many times? Stop it. Have gaps in your calendar? Jump on something that was planned for tomorrow. Repeat event that typically takes 15 minutes or delayed by 10? Help me fill this out.
4. Integration. Building “one source of truth” is important both-ways. Something that I can integrate with all calendars, throw away TODOs, and live the happy life.

I did play around with time scheduling and management tools. E.g. I tried to use Google’s Appointment Slots and schedule time for myself. At the same time syncing my Outlook to Google Calendar. Well, … it sorta works, but: you cannot complete items, they can’t be carried over to next day, they lack flexibility in theirs duration, and the process is time consuming.

I also tried Amy (x.ai), but she cannot understand me begging to find time to review X for 30 minutes today or tomorrow and then mark it as complete or not, and reschedule.

Then I was like… #todo Awesome! Wait, or not? #shutdown In fact, I even reached out to the guys to talk, but never heard back. Sorry.

How is it working out for you? I would love to hear back from you.