Ensure your time is accessible only to those you need to see, for booking at events you need to attend.

Why have a Master Diary?

Where your working life spreads across multiple organisations, you can find yourself in a situation where multiple calendars are competing with each other. Ultimately, you can only be in one place at one time so you need to be in control.

A master diary can give you back a feeling of ownership over your time. There will still be the individual organisations’ diaries but you will decide or agree which portion of your time to allocate to each. Your diary is your time. The organisation diary is the granularity of a pocket of time. If it’s not in your diary, it’s not happening.

Implementation of a master diary can be an educational exercise, as organisations learn that booking your time is a conversation, not a given, a request, not a demand. It can feel confronting, however at the other side of those conversations awaits greater freedom and peace. While it may feel difficult for you to have those discussions yourself, they are the bread and butter of a PA! 

Paper Diary

Are you already working to a digital diary or do you prefer a paper diary or wall calendar? There is still a place for paper diaries. For example, my family has a wall calendar displaying the academic year. This helps us plan work and family life over the school year around our children’s commitments. Some small businesses opt for a wall calendar where they and staff can view holiday leave at a glance. 

While there may still be a role for paper diaries, great care should be taken as their loss could be an instant data breach. The loss of a phone does not necessarily lead to a data breach if the device is encrypted.

Remember… If you are relying on both paper and digital diaries then you will need to remember to transpose into the paper diary from the digital diary, or vice versa! And if your master diary is a notebook clutched firmly to your side, it is harder for someone to help you with its management.

Although it may feel contradictory, relinquishing complete control of your diary is an important step in guarding your time as you become one step removed from negotiations. 

Tricks with Digital Diaries

With digital diaries, there are some tricks you can employ to help in management of your master diaries.

The mechanism of working will vary depending on the calendar application you are using, but consider sharing your calendar, perhaps with a partner or select colleague. Layering the shared calendars with your own provides a view of them all in one place. This can further reduce time spent negotiating over meetings.

Be mindful of sharing permissions! Consider data privacy and decide whether to share with just free and busy times viewable, or with full editing ability! Always have in mind that your diary is your time, so ultimately it must work for you. 

Diary Gold

For greater impact and data security, move away from the calendar associated with a gmail.com, hotmail.com, iCal or similar and use one linked to your business name domain. 

Remember: Look after your brand. Your brand is you!

Key Points

• Diary management is a mindset. Your time is precious; guard it.

• There is a hierarchy of diaries, with your diary on the top. (One Diary to bring them all…)

• Consider data privacy in your choice of diary, the content of diary events and who you share your diary with.

• Relinquishing complete control can (weirdly!) lead to greater overall control as you take a step back from negotiations.

• For gold standard diary management, use the calendar associated with your business name domain as your master.