Why Every Executive Needs an Assistant for Calendar Management
As nearly anyone in the business world can tell you, time is one of an executive’s most valuable resources. Having time to pursue new leads and opportunities, liaison with clients, and collaborate with other team members is crucial to maintaining and growing a company. Yet all too often, executives find themselves bogged down in the minutiae of daily office tasks that take away from their more important work responsibilities.
Calendar management is one such chore. According to a study by Harvard Business Review, business leaders and CEOs spend approximately 72% of their total work time in meetings—which means executive calendars are likely to be loaded with back-to-back commitments. And while an organized calendar is a very necessary component of conducting business, managing it completely on your own while juggling other duties can easily lead to missed meetings, scheduling issues, and lost opportunities.
Professionals who choose to tackle their calendars head-on may be signing up for a hefty dose of extra work. 43% of respondents in Calendly’s 2024 State of Meetings study reported spending at least 3 hours a week just scheduling meetings, up from 36% the previous year.
Rather than depleting your time and personal resources, hiring an assistant to take over your executive calendar management can help you streamline your workload and provide better organization for both you and your team members.
Benefits of Hiring an Executive Assistant for Calendar Management
Turning your executive calendar management over to an assistant offers myriad benefits that can optimize your entire operation. Ways that an in-house or virtual executive assistant can help with calendar management include:
Daily time blocking: Do you need to set aside time each day to return calls, follow up with clients, or even get a workout in? Your assistant can block open slots on your calendar for tasks such as these, making them a regular part of your day as opposed to trying to fit them in when you can.
Advance Planning and Foresight: If you have regular events that need to be scheduled, an executive assistant can set recurring meetings and manage any changes as they occur.
Preventing back-to-back meetings: Going from meeting to meeting over the course of the day can be mentally exhausting and is often less efficient. Allowing for space between meetings where you can make notes, plan for next steps, or take a minute to recharge can keep you organized and helps you step into the next meeting feeling better prepared.
Keeping your calendar relevant to your current needs: Things can change quickly in the business world, so making sure your calendar displays what is actually happening on any given week is essential. Your EA will provide ongoing updates, which include new meetings, changes, or cancellations.
Automate your scheduling: A skilled assistant will make use of scheduling apps and tools, which can be set up to show open slots on your calendar and allow people to choose meeting times based on when you have available.
Delegating or deleting unnecessary calendar items: Your EA can help you determine which calendar items are redundant, as well as reviewing those low-level meetings that don’t provide value and potentially taking them off your plate altogether. The potential time savings here are enormous, as a 2019 industry study by Doodle found that the average professional in the US, UK, and Germany spent 13 days out of every year mired in pointless meetings.
Improve your work/life balance: With an experienced assistant managing your day, you’ll find that your calendar accurately reflects not only your business schedule, but your personal life as well. You can have everything lined up on your calendar, ensuring that important client meetings doesn’t overlap with those equally important family events.
How to Delegate your Executive Calendar Management to an Assistant
Once you’ve decided to hire an executive assistant to manage your calendar, you’ll need to determine the best way to set them up for success. Communication is key during the onboarding process, and you’ll want to consider the following factors:
Primary calendar usage: How do you make use of your calendars? Do you have separate calendars for personal and business tasks, or use your phone calendar independently from your desktop? You and your new assistant can discuss how to incorporate multiple calendars and restructure them for a better workflow.
Current calendar issues: Explain to your assistant what items make your calendar difficult for you and what you’d like to see instead. Is it hard to read, with inconsistent information? Does it show an accurate portrayal of your day, or are you missing those events and activities that fall outside of scheduled Zoom calls or meetings?
Accessing your calendar and emails: Since a good portion of your meeting requests are likely to arrive via email, providing access to both your calendar and email accounts will increase your assistant’s efficiency. Ideally, your assistant should have full control of your calendar, responding to meeting invites on your behalf and overseeing all communication relating to your schedule.
Decide which calendar tools you prefer: Decide which scheduling tools will work best for you and your assistant. You can use automated schedulers such as Calendly or Doodle, which allow clients to choose a meeting time that works best for them while also falling within your own time parameters—a big timesaver for all parties! You can also look at making use of different tabs and markers within your calendar, designating specific colors as flags for important events, family time, or appointment reminders.
Upcoming meeting requests/emails and events: Once you’ve decided on how your assistant will access your calendar and to what level, you’ll need to set up a plan on handling incoming meeting requests, events, etc. According to top EAs, being the sole gatekeeper of their employers’ calendars is a central part of effective calendar management, which means even you, the boss, should maintain a hands-off position when it comes to scheduling! Talk to your assistant about which meetings they should always accept, which ones to say no to, and which ones you’d like a heads up on prior to accepting or declining.
Travel Coordination: If your assistant is also going to be in charge of travel arrangements, you’ll want to make sure they put all pertinent information on your calendar. From flight confirmations and times, hotel reservations, car rentals, seminar or conference timetables, all these things should be documented on your calendar prior to your travel dates.
Time management/buffering: As stated, arranging your meetings so you have some buffer time between each one can aid in keeping you on track and give you time to prepare for the next appointment. Whether you want 10 minutes, 15, or more between meetings, convey this to your EA so they can create standard time blocks that allow you some breathing room.
Best practices in making your calendar easy to read and cohesive: What kind of information should each calendar event include? Do you want recurring meetings or calls with important clients flagged for easy reference? Make sure you’re clear on how you’d like things set up and talk about both the visual aspects of the calendar and the nuts and bolts of what any given week should contain.
Regular feedback and open communication: Plan for weekly meetings with your assistant to go over what’s working for you, what isn’t, and how the overall calendar management can be improved. Be open to their ideas and input, allowing them to be your best resource when it comes to keeping your calendar aligned.
Lambent’s Role in Finding the Perfect Executive Assistant
Specializing in the needs of executives, CEOs and private households, Lambent Services helps you create a more effective day-to-day workload, putting you back in charge of your schedule and most importantly, your time. We’re a small company, which means we provide a personal, focused service to our clients.
You’ll meet with us and share what your optimum work environment looks like, and we’ll work together to determine how an executive assistant can best facilitate that. In addition to calendar management, we can help with finding support for email management, daily admin work, travel coordination, event planning—even personal errands.
We employ a rigorous screening process, conducting all the initial interviews and vetting applicants prior to setting up interviews between you and potential candidates. Our clients include high-ranking CEOs, financial/investment institutions, real estate agencies, and major league sports management. Customers who hire through Lambent can rest assured that we understand the importance of high skill levels and a good culture fit, and we make sure that you’ll be interviewing with the only most qualified executive assistants we can find.
Allowing an executive assistant to take over management of your calendar frees you from the pressure of balancing multiple meetings and trying to schedule things on your own, as well as removing the risk of missing out on important communication, business ventures, or family time. An assistant hired through Lambent is a guarantee of experience, reliability, and professionalism—all of which makes your life easier!