I often hear the adage, “If you want to discern somebody's priorities, then you should look at their checkbook and their calendar.” Here, let's focus on the latter part of that two-pronged test.
Claims adjusters often find themselves pushed and pulled by forces outside themselves that intrude on their limited amount of time to work files and accomplish claims-related tasks and projects. In many offices, coworkers or others can unilaterally schedule and block out time with the adjuster. In addition, adjusters have discretion over appointments and other commitments that they place on their calendars. It is common for coworkers and bosses to be able to go online and view the calendar of any given claims professional within a busy claims office.
In terms of attaining optimal productivity and effectiveness, however, adjusters often lose sight of the calendar as a useful tool. Often, adjusters just play defense in defending their time against the incursions of meetings, conferences, interruptions, and other distractions.
To be sure, many of these are unavoidable and inherent in the very work that adjusters do. Nevertheless, adjusters have tools at their disposal to proactively utilize their work calendars to minimize impediments to productivity. Many adjusters will see noticeable gains whn employing these four tactics:
1. Get proactive about your own calendar. Don't view your calendar merely as a passive receptacle for meetings and appointments. Proactively block out time that you need for your own claims-related work and projects. Then treat it like an inviolable appointment.
Unfortunately, many claims professionals feel uneasy blocking out time for ourselves on our calendar. It feels selfish. We have become so conditioned to doing a calendar as simply a place to memorialize commitments that others impose on us: meetings, appointments, and so on. Again, calendars should be used for this purpose, but you should lurk on the defense. Play offense instead. Embrace proactive calendar management as the necessary discipline to accomplish your goals. Surely, like any other discipline, it can be overdone. You don't block out so much time that you leave no breathing room in your schedule and no margin for inevitable crises and other “unforeseeables,” which can arise in the course of a busy day in a typical claims operation.
2. Be a gatekeeper regarding others entering your calendar. Determine if there is some way that you can either prevent others from scheduling time on your calendar or at least create the option of mandatory review and approval, if appropriate, before a task can be placed on your calendar.
3. Set “self-appointments” for 90 minutes, max. If you make an appointment with yourself to work on a project, then confine that block to a maximum of 90 minutes. If you block out 2, 3, or even 4 hours at a time, others will view it skeptically. They may question whether you are genuinely using that entire time for work-related project related purposes. This means you risk losing credibility. Regardless, it can be challenging to sustain focus for longer than 90 minutes, despite the best intentions.
4. Honor your time commitment for self-appointments. If you make an appointment with yourself to work on a claims project, file review, to prepare to render a performance or whatever the task may be, honor that time block. Temptation to use that time to instead catch up on e-mails, incoming mail and so on will abound. However, succumbing to it will not do you—or your team, for that matter—much good. To reiterate the point above, honor the time commitment by focusing on that specific task—and that task alone—for a 30-, 60- or 90-minute block you have already taken care to set aside.
Calendar management is a vital skill that effective claims professionals must possess. This applies to all ranks, from the entry-level adjuster to the senior vice president of claims and a chief claims officer. It is a skill often untaught, but is instead presumed.
Be sure to get the most out of your calendar by using it not only as a reminder system for appointments and meetings, but also as an intentional tool for focusing your daily energies on your specific claim-related goals, tasks and accountabilities.
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