Calendar equals commitment

I wrote a piece on Feb. 18 called Precision vs. Ambiguity. I thought I would take a minute to enhance that “conversational” perception and contrast it with a calendar reality.

Your calendar is the most vivid depiction of the priorities you have. Look at your calendar, sure, right now. If that’s only in your mind, that’s already a bad sign.

Is your calendar full of milestones and deadlines for things that are important in your world? Is it comprehensive? Can you tell someone when you want something completed by in order to have it available for whatever happens next?

Many people are good at planning for Holiday Shopping, a special party or a wedding and plan months in advance. Yet they may be terrible at planning out what needs to happen for their business in order to make it hum. Example: Put off finding the cake decorator or reserve the location you want for a wedding and you will get whatever is left uncommitted because the calendar eliminated choices as the event became closer. That’s how it works. If it’s important, do it sooner. To do that, put it in your calendar.

Milestones and deadlines should all be there – along with whatever interim things need to be called out so as not to be missed. When someone asks about the launch date, or the available date and you are ambiguous, it’s because you are not driving your organization to get it done. To see if your company has direction, look deeply into your calendar. What does your calendar say about your ability “to get it done”?

Here is what I know. You can largely size up a person’s or a company’s priorities by their calendar. People who have lots of stuff on their calendars achieve things. People who keep it in their head or in disparate places they don’t see every day don’t achieve as many things. Why bury what’s important in your world exclusively in the vault that is your overtaxed brain? What’s on the calendar gets done. Simple. The bigger the impact you want to have with your efforts, the more people you need to rally to get stuff done, the more central your calendar is.

Next time you consider attending a Sports event or performance of some kind, any kind, ask yourself when that was calendared by the participants? Run your business like everything you do is that important. Or ask yourself why not.