Hey, Chad here, coming to you over the digital airwaves on the 1% Better Podcast. 

[00:00:10]An indispensable tool for me has been Calendly. Calendly is a web app that connects to your different calendars and allows people to book different types of events or  different times to connect with you. So, for instance, I set up an hour long, a video chat event in Calendly and then people can click up a public link that shows them availability on my calendar. 

[00:00:43]It's a great way for me to be able to share my availability with people without giving them direct access to my calendar where they can see everything that's on it. It essentially, will just tell them,  Chad's available between noon and four, and allow them to just one-click book and then it will send us both calendar invitations.

[00:01:03] I've been using this tool probably for two to three years, but I think as we're all transitioning or have transitioned to working remotely and virtually it's been an indispensable tool. 

[00:01:16] As long as I have my obligated, events on my calendar, it makes it really easy for people to book time with me. Everything from client meetings, client calls, client virtual workshops to podcasting sessions to catch ups with friends, you know, in the middle of the day. 

[00:01:36] I think as our schedules in some ways got completely free. they also, Got consumed by all of the day to day. you know, that comes with with staying and working from home, whether that's childcare or, you know, did the general home maintenance and taking care of ourselves, et cetera, and getting that that much needed, outdoor time. 

[00:02:00]Calendly   allows me to block out specific periods of time as well for certain activities. So, for example, I don't allow any events on the calendar before 11:00 AM. And the reason for that is so that I can protect that morning time for what I call my deep work. I'm a morning person, so that's the hours in which I feel like I'm most productive, and so I want to protect that time and Calendly makes it really easy for me to set the times of day in which, different types of meetings can be booked. so that my client calls are maybe a little later in the afternoon, you know, you can also set a cutoff time where maybe you don't take any calls after 4:00 PM cause you went to start winding down your day. 

[00:02:47]It's really simple and easy to use. You just log in with your, with your calendar providers  whether that's through Office 365 or Google and then you just tell it what calendars you want it to look at to check for conflicts. And then as you're setting up a meeting, you just give it a name, a duration, and then what times of day and days of the week, you'll, be open to those events. 

[00:03:12] So, for example, if I only wanted to record podcasts between 4:00 and 8:00 PM on weekdays, I could set that right up in Calendly so that when someone clicks on the Calendly slash Chad slash podcast link, they see all of those weeknights slots to record podcasts. I wanted to share Calendly with you all because it's really helped me, protect some of my time to to be productive, and, and not have to be constantly showing up onto  meetings, all day, every day and also to make it really easy to connect with others. just sending out a link, you know, asking to reconnect with someone, or, to record a podcast session with someone it's made it so much easier for me to just send a link, than all of that back and forth that you would typically have to do of, "Oh,  which of these three times works for you? Oh, none of those. Well, how about this?" It's just a simple, you know, practically two clicks and you've got something scheduled. 

[00:04:12] Other fun ways that I've used this is scheduling virtual board game sessions, with friends and family. like I said, podcasting sessions, and before we all, were sequestered at home. I also use this for coffee meetings as well. It made it real easy to schedule. 

[00:04:27] I hope you get as much use out of Calendly as I have the past few years. It's well worth  the subscription fee, although they do have a free version available. 

[00:04:37]I'm curious what tools you've used or techniques or practices you have, to better manage your calendar, your schedule, I'll call it your peak productivity hours? I would love to, to learn, from all of you, so get in touch. Send me a text or voice message at 917.719.3737 and share some of the ways in which you're getting 1% better each and every day. 

[00:05:05]Thank you so much for listening until next time.