Clockwise Setup for Managers

As a manager, your priority is your team. You want to ensure they have what they need to accomplish their goals, so you spend a lot of your week in 1:1s. There doesn't seem to be enough time in the day or the week to get your own work done. Clockwise can't add more hours to your day, but if used correctly, it can help you make the most of the time you have.

Clockwise can automatically manage your calendar to find the best times for you to meet with others and have focus time to yourself. 

If you spend 5 minutes configuring your Clockwise settings now, it can save you hours of time in the future. This guide will walk you through the 5 essential features for managers like yourself- all in less than 5 minutes. 

Before you begin, make sure you've downloaded the Clockwise extension (in Chrome or Firefox) and log in using your Google Workspace account.

Then, continue with the guide to follow the 5 simple steps to get the most out of Clockwise.

Step 1: Protect your Focus Time

Unbroken time is valuable for getting your deep work done, whether its creating an operational plan or analyzing target metrics.

Clockwise can help you find long, uninterrupted blocks of time and will protect your time for deep work and to find breaks in your day. To start protecting your time, you can turn on Clockwise-managed holds for Focus Time, lunch, and more.

1. Navigate to Your Ideal Day.
2. Begin by setting your work hours, and meeting preferences.

3. Scroll down to Do you need Focus Time to get things done?

   

4. Click the toggle to enable Focus Time.
5. Select your ideal Focus Time goal for the number of hours you need for deep work.
6. Continue down the options on the page to ensure you're able to set aside time for what matters.

Try it now! Follow the instructions above to turn on Clockwise-managed holds and set your Focus Time goal. Then move on to learn how to free up more Focus Time. 

Want to learn more about Focus Time? Check out the article here. 

Step 2: Mark meetings as flexible

Not only can Clockwise protect Focus Time on your calendar, but it can actually help you carve out more of it with flexible meetings.

If you want Clockwise to find you more Focus Time or to resolve meeting conflicts, you can tell it which meetings are flexible to move. Then, Clockwise will reorganize your calendar once a day by automatically rescheduling flexible meetings if it can find less disruptive times using your meeting preferences and your flexibility settings. 

Some meetings are naturally more flexible than others, and your recurring 1:1s with your teammates and direct reports are often the most flexible. By marking them flexible with Clockwise, you can stop wasting time resolving conflicts or trying to find the optimal times to meet. Plus, you can control exactly how the meeting should move with meeting-specific flexibility preferences.

1. Visit your flexible meeting dashboard.
2. Click the toggle for the meetings you'd like to enable flexibility for.
3. Adjust the settings to control whether it can move within the day, week, or specific days.

4. Adjust the time window that this meeting should move within 

   

Let's try it! Follow the instructions above to mark your 1:1 meetings as flexible. Then move on to learn how to simplify scheduling. 

Step 3: Simplify scheduling

Clockwise can handle the tedious manual work of scheduling and rescheduling events with your direct reports and cross-functional peers.

It will find the best times according to everyone's preferences and holds, and will offer suggestions for when to schedule. It will also display the impact of your meeting so you can be mindful of your teammate's time and any potential conflicts. 

Tell Clockwise what kind of meeting you need to schedule, and it will make it happen!

You can view an overlay of the attendees' calendars, as well as make changes to the event scheduling suggestion.

To get suggestions for rescheduling existing events:

1. Click on the event you need to reschedule.
2. Choose a quick reschedule option that works for everyone, or click "Find more times" to bring up more options

3. Click on the time that works best for you, save & send!

Step 4: Organize your team

You’ve set up your Clockwise preferences, you know how much Focus Time is right for you, and you made the right meetings flexible so Clockwise can find the best time to reschedule them. You’re doing great!

The next step is to take a look at the ways you can maximize Clockwise by using it with your team. If your team collectively cares about Focus Time, you're more likely to protect it!

Plus, you can avoid burnout on your team by leveraging team features including Team Analytics, No Meeting Days, and the Team Availability Calendar.

To set up your team:

1. Click on + Create or join team from the left side navigation of the Clockwise web app.

   

2. Click + Create team.

   

3. Invite the right teammates to join your team.
4. Configure Team features under Manage the team.

Ready, set, go! Set up your Team in Clockwise and configure your team settings so everyone can save more time. You can learn more about using your Team features here.

Step 5: Review team analytics

Your team's Focus Time should be a regular topic of discussion in your 1:1's. Understanding how your reports are feeling and how it relates to their bandwidth is important to appreciating each individual.

Use Clockwise Team Analytics to elevate the right data to understand your team's needs and understand the right adjustments required to get more Focus Time.

Team analytics are only available in the Clockwise browser extension:

1. Open the Clockwise extension.
2. Under the Teammates tab, click on the name of one of your reports.
3. View the analytics and adjust the time period to understand trends.

Here are examples of how to interpret the analytics to find actionable insights:

All the calendars in the screenshots below may complain that they don't have enough bandwidth and feel overwhelmed at work. Based on the data, each calendar has a different issue affecting them and this, it's easier to propose different solutions on how their calendars can improve:

Calendar A:

• Low on Focus Time, OK on fragmented time, and incredibly high number of hours in meetings
  • Potential Solution:
    • Analyze this report's meetings to understand where they can reduce the amount of meetings they attend.
    • Do they need to attend all of their meetings?
    • Can some of their weekly meetings be moved to bi-weekly?

Calendar B:

• Doing alright on Focus Time, high on fragmented time, and pretty high number of hours in meetings
  • Potential Solution:
    • Analyze this report's meetings similar to the calendar above, cut down where possible.
    • Their fragmented time is high, can any of their meetings be marked as flexible?
    • If their meetings are flexible, can they increase their meeting flexibility so Clockwise has more room to optimize their calendar?

Calendar C:

• Has a lot of Focus Time, high on fragmented time, and a good number of hours in meetings
  • Potential Solution:
    • Work with the teammate to mark more meetings as flexible to reduce their fragmented time.
    • Talk with this teammate to identify other issues such as work prioritization, time management, or feeling fulfilled with their work.

Check out your Team Analytics now, and use this as a standing topic in 1:1s moving forward.