Language options
Table of Contents
Share
Scheduling may seem simple, but it's often time-consuming and complicated. Whether you're a freelance designer juggling client calls or a school administrator managing staff meetings, your calendar is more than just blocks of time. It's more like a map of how your day unfolds. And if you're making those decisions without data, you're basically flying blind.
1. Pay attention to what has already happened
Sarah is a freelance illustrator and Mondays were starting to stress her out. She noticed that a lot of client calls booked for Monday mornings were getting postponed or cancelled. So she looked back over a few months of bookings and clearly saw the pattern. He now books calls for Tuesday afternoons, and things have been much better. Fewer no-shows and better conversations.
If you work in education, you may notice something similar with staff visits or student sessions. A little look back can save you a lot of time going forward.
2. Use booking trends to shape your week
Mario, a young business coach, started noticing an interesting pattern: most of his discovery calls were on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Instead of spreading them throughout the week, he now groups them into those two days and reserves Monday and Friday for strategy work and content creation. This change is directly driven by the booking data.
Teachers and tutors can do the same by noticing when students tend to book help sessions or when parents are more likely to respond to meeting invitations.
3. Catch minor scheduling problems early
If you catch them, they won't escalate. Emily, for example, runs a small nonprofit business and, unfortunately, often had to deal with last-minute cancellations. After researching some simple booking data, she realized that people were much more likely to back out if the meeting was set too far in advance. So he reduced the margin and allowed people to book less far in advance. It didn't fix everything, but no-shows went way down and his schedule became much less chaotic.
Coaches, consultants or tech founders who do a lot of back-to-back calls can benefit from these kinds of ideas, especially when calendar chaos starts to creep in.
4. Figure out where you spend your time
A basic chart can be eye-opening and change the way you view your time; you don't need anything fancy. As a software developer and startup founder, Ryan started tracking the time he spent in meetings versus the time he spent programming. The numbers surprised him. He was spending 60% of his week in meetings. He used that information to cut back on some recurring meetings and spend more time creating.
Educators, especially those in administrative roles, can use the data to see if meetings are consuming time that would be better spent on lesson preparation or one-on-one support for students.
5. Use the data to improve the way you meet
Once you have the information, you can make smarter decisions. As a career coach, Layla found that her energy (and her clients' engagement) was highest in the early afternoon. She moved all early sessions to that time and client feedback improved dramatically. He didn't change his schedule, but instead relied on what his calendar already told him. You don't have to use every feature or turn your calendar into a science project. It's much better to make small changes that suddenly have an impact.
Let the data do the heavy lifting
Smart scheduling is not about having the perfect calendar. It's more important to learn from what has already happened and use it to make better decisions in the future. And that's where data really shines. If you're ready to take better control of your time and start making scheduling work for you, Doodle is made to help. It's simple, intuitive and designed to fit the way you work.
