Have you ever forgotten to attend an online or face-to-face meeting? Have you ever waited for a team member to come but never came? Have you struggled with deadlines and unfinished projects? A project calendar will be the answer to avoid these problems again.
What a project calendar is
Making the right things at the right moment is the key to a successful project. That is why making a calendar that organizes your work, and all your teammates is a must in your business.
A project calendar is a tool that will let you establish what task has to be done and when organizing and making the work of a team more efficient. A project calendar is the most organized way of visualizing all the tasks at once so you can detect where your team is having any trouble by solving them. If you work without a project calendar, especially with large groups, you will probably get lost trying to identify who is having some problems with his task.
It is essential to mark the difference between a regular calendar and a project calendar. The first one is where you will write your appointments and that you are not looking to debate or change them with anyone. A project calendar will be a debate space in which you can exchange ideas with other teammates about priorities and deadlines.
Benefits of a project calendar
Tracking: a good project calendar will allow you to track your employees' jobs and detect if any of them is having a problem with their jobs before it is too late.
Deadlines: deadlines are essential and can give us some headaches. An organized project calendar will make all the deadlines we have to handle in the short, medium, and long term. This is a good way of avoiding unwished surprises in the future.
Debate: an interactive project calendar can create discussion. You and your teammates will see the same calendars on their computers so that you can debate about deadlines, meetings, and appointments. Remember that two heads think better than one.
Organize personal time: holidays and days off can be hard to organize in large groups. With a project calendar, you can mark when a team member cannot work so you know who and how can replace him.
3 tools to make a good project calendar
Out there on the internet, there are plenty of tools to make a good project calendar. Here we will share three different tools for different occasions: if you need free options, mobile app options, or time tracking options, watch this list.
Google calendar
We can not start this list without mentioning Google calendar. One of the most effective ways to create a project calendar is free. With Google calendar, you will be able to create a shared calendar with the rest of your team where you can upload your everyday tasks and meetings. A significant benefit is that Google meets are already incorporated, so when you schedule an appointment, a meeting link will be automatically created. Also, a great thing about Google calendar is its excellent mobile app.
The downside of Google calendar is that, although possible, it is not a very friendly tool for collaboration, last-minute meetings, and task scheduling with the rest of your team members.
Float
Probably one of the best time-tracking calendars you can find. With Float, you can look at every calendar of your team members to see what they are doing and how much time they spend on that. This system can certainly work in jobs structured by hours, but if your team is working just by objectives, maybe this one is not the best option for creating your project calendar.
The main disadvantage of Float is that after your first free trial, you will have to pay $6 per user per month.
ClickUp
Another good and free mobile version calendar. With ClickUp, you will be able to create a task calendar so you can make your team stay focused on the main objective. It is also great for memos, scheduling meetings, and sharing documents.
In our opinion, ClickUp created the most effective mobile version. It is available on almost every smartphone, and it allows you to work just like if you were on a computer. Also, it has an offline work mode that will let you use the app if you are not connected to the internet. ClickUp is an excellent option for digital nomads.
ClickUp has a paid plan that starts from $5 per month per user but also has a free plan with some limitations.
Final thoughts
Leading a work team is not easy at all. Meetings, objectives, tasks, deadlines, doubts, questions, and many more are everyday struggles. To lead a successful project is very important to have fluid communication with your team, in which everyone can be aware of what and when is the next step.
Creating a clear project calendar will help you and your team organize to achieve the objectives effectively. In this article, we share three tools to make a good project calendar so you can compare them and choose the right one for your business.
Remember: an organized project is the first step to a successful project.
