By Karen Porter

Effectively managing your executive’s calendar means doing more than filling in the empty slots on the calendar (whether that be a digital or paper calendar). Just filling in the blanks, essentially, is using the “order-taking” method of doing things. That’s when your executive says put so and so on the calendar, or when someone else asks you to put him or her on your executive’s calendar, and you just fill that person’s name into one of the empty days and times. Done!

There is no strategic thinking involved in order-taking because you are just working robotically without doing much of any thinking at all. You see an empty slot on a calendar, you fill it with an order (request) given to you by your executive or the other party. No questions asked — either by yourself to yourself or to others.

Order-taking is not valuable in the administrative professional role and isn’t an effective way to manage your executive’s schedule and calendar. Contrarily, the best administrative professionals use strategic thinking to manage their executive’s schedules and calendars. That is quite the opposite of order-taking.

What’s meant by strategic thinking in general is that you think in a broader way. That is you view a bigger picture of what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and how you’re doing it. Then you can do whatever you’re doing more effectively — in this case calendar management and scheduling. That makes you a more valuable administrative professional.

So it is imperative that you use strategic thinking and put deliberate thought into managing your executive’s calendar and schedule. This calendar management and scheduling is possibly one of the most crucial tasks you do for your executive. The reason is that you are essentially telling your executive where to be when and what to do there. It is also during this task that you can maximize your executive’s time, which is possibly the most valuable commodity for a busy executive. Do this task well! This is no mundane, order-taking task when you dig into what it’s really all about. Turn the page for some tips about thinking strategically during this calendar management and scheduling task.

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