Don’t set appointments? Huh?

Let me clarify. Of course you need to set appointments in your business life. What I’m recommending is that you avoid setting specific times for your appointments.

Instead of saying

“I’ll be at your office at 2:30pm on Tuesday”

you instead say

“I’ll be at your office on Tuesday sometime in the early afternoon.”

Of course if the appointment is an actual meeting with multiple people, you won’t be able to do this. But! You will be shocked at how often your business appointments do not fall into that category.

Just on a whim, I started doing this about ten years ago. I simply avoided giving out specific times I’d show up. Instead I used time frames like “early afternoon” or “mid morning”. If someone really demanded I give them a specific time, I did so.  But they almost never did.  It completely transformed my stress levels and was one of the best time management ideas I’ve ever come up with.

Try it and you’ll see.