In this edition of Calendar Heroes, we talk to Shay Kingsbury, a Program Manager focused on the Go To Market program at Hootsuite, to learn about her style, tools, and methodologies for balancing priorities while leading end-to-end merger and acquisition integration and Go To Market for Sparkcentral for one of the most popular social media marketing and management platforms in the world. Follow Hootsuite at @hootsuite on Twitter and Shay on LinkedIn. 

Calendar Heroes are real stories from very busy professionals across all types of roles and industries to learn more about how they manage to make time where there is none. We’re highlighting these stories to help share tips and ideas for working effectively, improving your time management skills, and boosting your productivity. 

If you know a Calendar Hero who has awesome productivity hacks that you’d like to recommend we interview or want to be interviewed yourself, let us know! You don’t have to be a Reclaim user to be featured as a Calendar Hero: these stories are about anyone with an interesting approach to managing a complex schedule. 

Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do?

I'm Shay, a Program Manager at Hootsuite. I've been working in project and program management for 7 years across agencies, consulting, and in mid-large size enterprises (retail, gaming, and now social media). My role at Hootsuite is leading large, complex cross-functional initiatives globally. Most recently, I've been entrusted with leading Go To Market workstreams for company acquisitions. 

What does a typical workweek look like for you?

Monday is reporting day, the reports I compile give our business leaders visibility into key success metrics and progress across our workstreams. The remainder of the week typically comprises of morning meetings (with my EMEA based colleagues!) and ad hoc meetings to gain organizational alignment on key initiatives. 

What techniques do you use to manage your time?

Well, my afternoons are my sacred time to get key deliverables completed! If I have a lot of smaller things to work through, I utilize the Pomodoro method which keeps me focused on my output. I’m also an avid proponent of Inbox Zero, and the method of Inbox Triage, a twice daily scan of all emails to quickly respond, or flag for detailed response later. 

What tools do you use to make you more productive?

Whether I'm working on a workshop agenda, compiling data, or putting together presentations, I use Reclaim.ai to block time in the afternoons to tackle these tasks. I also use Reclaim for weekly habits such as my reporting. For day-to-day requests that come up, I use “pen & paper” as checking off a task on paper is so motivating!

I also use the message scheduling functionality in Slack and Gmail so that my communications are heading out at the right time - making me much more productive. I also use do not disturb features on Slack, and on my phone if I really need to create focus time. I’ve just started using Superhuman also, which is helping me get to Inbox Zero everyday! 

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

"Be a palm tree". This advice actually came from a Flight Attendant YouTuber I watch (Fly With Stella) but it's definitely applicable when you work in the social media and customer care space as the industry is constantly changing and you have to go with the flow.