Google Calendar

Some things you won’t know without years of experience on the job.

As I’ve been planning for the holiday season and 2023, I realized that even if someone on your team has the skill set and drive in operations, execution, production, marketing, etc, you can’t always expect them to know the details of what and when without the years of prior experience in the company.

That’s where a shared Google calendar can help!

I’ve always loved writing things on paper, but noticed that no matter how great of a team I had, sometimes they couldn’t anticipate things the way I could because of my years of prior experience and knowing the seasons, trends, and our customers and clients. And so when someone who loves systems and organization and execution came on board, I saw how he thrived when I provided clear expectations, deadlines, and what to do when.

There are so many details that I keep in my head and write out the basics that can fit in the tiny box in the space of a paper calendar. But realizing that he doesn’t know everything in my head and in training needed to share it all with him, I knew I had to put them somewhere digitally where it could be organized and remembered year after year. I prefer pen and paper, but to scale and build others in my team, I need empower them so returned to a digital calendar and am glad I did.

There are things that come up year after year and so simply making it “repeat annually” is so much simpler digitally. Organized systems people also love color-coding and looking at different types of calendars at a time and so they love Google Calendar. We can also easily have multiple calendars like “holidays,” “work schedule,” “marketing themes,” and “corporate orders.”

Our shared Google calendar has been a system that is helping us to better stay on track with operations, schedule our volunteers and part-time crew, and helps us remember important dates. Right after holidays, we can also put notes on our calendar for next year while it’s fresh in our heads.

Google Calendar is simple to use, simple to view, and simple to share.

And although this may be old news and nothing super ingenious, it may be a good reminder to look at your systems and make sure it’s still working for your current team and supporting their growth.

erin’s tip

Find a calendar system that works for you and your team.