Clockwise Setup for Operations Teams

In Operations, you're always driving to make the organization more efficient. And yet, to be efficient yourself, you need time to develop processes, unblock your team, and think ahead to long-term strategy. But the cross-functional nature of your role also requires lots of meetings and context switching.

Clockwise is here to help by automatically managing 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 Operations teammates like yourself- all in less than 5 minutes. 

Before you begin, make sure you've downloaded the Clockwise extension (in Chrome or Firefox) and set up your 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 creative strategizing or analyzing experiment results.

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 holds for Focus Time, lunch, and more.

1. Navigate to Your Ideal Day.
2. Begin by setting your working and meeting hours.

3. Next, toggle the option for Do you need Focus Time to get things done?

   

4. Select your ideal Focus Time goal for the number of hours you need for deep work.
5. Continue adding other Clockwise-managed holds and adjusting the settings for lunch, travel time, and more. 

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 to 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 most optimal times to meet. Plus, you can control exactly how the meeting should move with meeting-specific flexibility preferences.

1. Click into a meeting you want to make flexible (such as a recurring 1:1 event)
2. Toggle on the setting that says Flexible meeting (only available on paid plans)
3. Adjust the settings to control whether it can move within the day, within the week, or within specific weekdays

4. [Optional] 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: Make time for lunch

It can be hard to find the time to eat lunch when you're busy, but no one does their best work when they are hungry! Let Clockwise automatically schedule dynamic lunch holds on your calendar so that you never have to sacrifice your lunch break again. 

1. Back in Your Ideal Day, click the toggle for How about having time for lunch every day?

   

2. Adjust the parameters to indicate the minimum amount of time you need and the window of time when it can happen.

Clockwise will automatically create a calendar event that corresponds to your lunch preferences.  These dynamic calendar events are updated in real-time as your calendar changes, so you can always have an up-to-date view of the time you have available for lunch. 

Step 5: Meet at the best times

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 last step is to help make sure external meetings are scheduled at the best times as well. Part of your work in Operations may involve managing vendors and contractors, and you may have dozens of external stakeholders you need to connect with. You can use Clockwise Scheduling Links to easily coordinate meetings with customers while protecting your Focus Time and accounting for your preferences. 

1. Visit your Scheduling Links page.
2. Click Create a link.
3. Configure the settings of your link, including the title, description, duration, scheduling window, and conference option.
4. Select how much availability you want to provide by indicating how you want the meeting to interact with your Focus Time.
5. Click Create Link.

6. Copy the link URL and send to your customers (or anyone) to schedule with you. 

   

Ready, set, go! Set up your Clockwise Scheduling Link and share it so you can meet at the best times, not just the next time.