Google Calendar was likely the second Google app you tried, right
after Gmail, when you got your first Google account. With a history
dating back to 2006, one that's overshadowed by Gmail and Google's other
apps, it's easy to overlook Google Calendar's deep set of features.
Even though it appears to just be a basic calendar app at first
glance, Google Calendar has the features you need to manage almost any
calendar needs. In this article, you'll find 30 tips and tricks to
customize the app and make it work for your needs. Whether you're
wrangling an international business spanning multiple time zones, or
just need a better way to track events with friends and family, here's
how you can use Google Calendar to manage all that and more.
Change Your Calendar's Appearance
1. Color Code Your Calendars and Toggle Visibility
One of the best ways to spruce up your calendar is to add a touch of
color. You can add color to your calendars with one of the 24 Google
Calendar colors or mix your own. Varying their colors can help you to
differentiate your calendars at a glance, making important events stand
out. If a single color for each calendar isn't enough, you can also add
colors to individual events on the Edit Event page.
You may not always need or want every calendar to be visible,
especially if you've been added to several colleagues' calendars. To cut
through the clutter, click the name of the calendar you wish to hide.
Its name will remain in the list, but the events will no longer appear
in the main calendar view. To bring the calendar back, just click its
name in the list again.
2. Keep Abreast of the Week's Weather
If you've set your location in your Google Calendar settings, your
calendar can display your weather for the next several days. In
Settings–which you'll find clicking the cog in the upper right–select a
setting for your weather information, either Celsius or Fahrenheit, and
Google Calendar will create a customized weather calendar. Get an idea
of the forecast with a quick look at the weather icons, or click an icon
to get more details.
3. Personalize Your Calendar With a Background Image
Some of Google Calendar's best settings are hidden inside
Labs, the part of Google's apps where it puts experimental features. To find these features, select
Labs after clicking the Settings cog, and there you'll find a number of extra features–including the Background Image feature.
Activate the Calendar Background Image feature in Labs, then go back
to settings and you'll find the newly added Calendar Background setting.
Add an image here, either by choosing an image from your albums or
uploading a new image, and choose how your image will be displayed. Once
you've saved your changes, return to your calendar to see your
background image.
4. Focus With Agenda View
Get a listing of your next several meetings and events by clicking
Agenda
in the upper right of your calendar. Depending on how many events you
have upcoming, you may see just today or all of the events for the next
several days.
The Agenda view is a simplified view that's quickly actionable. It
gives you quick access to some details about each event, including when
and where the event is and who created the event. Quickly add an
event-specific color here, or click for more details or to edit the
event.
5. View a Date Range
Sometimes the default month, week, and day views aren't detailed
enough, and you need to focus on a specific period of time. To spotlight
a range of dates, click and drag on the dates you want to select in the
mini calendar on the upper left. Concentrate on just a couple of weeks,
or keep dragging to pull in dates from the preceding or following
months. Move your selection by clicking any date outside the selection
box; click one of the default views in the upper right to clear the
selection.
6. Create a Work Week View
Professionals who only use Google Calendar for work may find they
don't need to see a whole month at a time, or even a 7-day week. In
Settings, you can set the default view to Week, and toggle
Show Weekends
off. When you've saved and returned to your calendar, you'll see only
Monday-Friday for the current week displayed. This view may give you a
better idea of what you have going on at work, with less clutter to
distract you.
7. Hide Late Night and Early Morning Hours
It's unlikely you're getting a lot done at 3 A.M., and if you are,
it's likely due more to insomnia than any scheduled event. If you find
you're not creating many meetings before 7 A.M. or after 6 P.M., Google
Calendar can hide those hours–or any range of time you like–highlighting
instead the hours when you've actually got something to do.
In Labs, enable
Hide Morning and Night, then save your
changes and open Google Calendar's Day View. You'll now see a slider on
the left. Drag the slider up or down to hide a time range in the early
morning, and find a matching slider at the bottom of your calendar day
to hide late evening. Once you've abridged your calendar, you can expand
mornings and nights by clicking the hidden time range.
8. Show Calendar Year View
This is another Labs setting that sets you up to view your entire
year at once. Year View displays the entire year in a grid, allowing you
to navigate to a future date quickly. This is particularly useful if
you need to know dates like the third Wednesday in June or which months
have five Fridays.
9. Use an Alternate Calendar
If you follow another calendar system, like the Chinese or Hebrew
calendar, you can add that information to your main calendar. In
settings, look for
Alternate Calendar. Choose your calendar and
save to return to the main calendar. You'll notice that the date from
your newly added calendar is displayed alongside the Google standard
date.
Add Events and Calendars
10. Create an Event with Google Search
If you're not in the Google Calendar app, you can still add an event
from a Google search page. You can even go straight to the address bar
omnibox and skip the Google search page if your default search engine is
already Google.
Just write a similar statement to what you would enter into the Quick
Add box back in Google Calendar, like "Lunch with Wade at 11:30," but
preface your event information with "make an appointment to." Enter that
into Google search, and at the top of your search results will be a
Create Event box with your event details. Click that button to add your
event to Google Calendar.
11. Add Google Calendar Events with Your Voice
Too busy even to type? Use Google's voice search to add a new event. If you have OK Google enabled in Chrome (you can
enable it by visiting Chrome's Advanced Settings),
all you have to do is say "OK Google" with a search page open and then
speak your event information. Or, if you don't have OK Google enabled,
just click the microphone in the Google Search box.
Now, just speak aloud the event details you'd otherwise type into a
Quick Add window, and then add your event from Google's search results.
12. Create an Event with Quick Add
While clicking
Create in the upper left corner of Google
Calendar may seem like the most obvious way to compose a new event,
there are a couple of simpler ways to make it happen. Start with
Quick Add, found by clicking the caret next to Create.
Click that caret, then start typing your event details in the new
text box that appears to quickly create a new event. Focus on who, what,
when, and where: Who the event is with, what are you doing, where is it
happening, and–most importantly for your calendar–when is all of this
going down. Google Calendar will create a new event, and you can edit it
later if you need to add more details.
You can open up a similar Quick Add window by clicking on any date on
your calendar. As before, focus on writing the important elements, such
as time and place. You can even create a recurring event by adding a
phrase like "every Friday" to your text.
13. Add Events From Other Apps
Your tasks, projects, events, and more often live in other apps. Even
if you check your Google Calendar each day for the things you need to
do, you still might be missing stuff. Zapier's
Google Calendar integration
can help out here. You can let any of your other apps—your event tools,
notes apps, project management boards, and more—automatically add
events to Google Calendar. Just select the app you need as the trigger,
then use Google Calendar as the action. You can even use Gmail to
add events based on your emails automatically.
Then, you can use Quick Add to add the event with just a line of
text, as above, or use the detailed event settings to add everything you
need. Here's some integrations to help you get started, or feel free to
make your own Google Calendar integrations in Zapier with your own
favorite apps.
14. Create a Deadline With Tasks
To keep up with your todos inside Google Calendar, click the
Tasks
calendar on the calendar list on the left, and then you'll see a new
sidebar on the right with a list of your tasks. Here you can type in
todos, then click the arrow beside them to choose a date and add your
todo to a list in Tasks. While Tasks doesn't require each task have a
deadline, all task with a date attached will appear in your calendar.
Even if you don't keep your task list visible, you can still add a
task by clicking anywhere on your calendar and selecting Task rather
than Event at the top of the Quick Add window. Just be aware that any
tasks you create this way will only be visible if your Tasks calendar is
also visible.
15. RSVP to Events in Gmail
If you get a ton of email event invites, it can be a chore opening
all of those emails and responding to the requests. Gmail cuts down on
the work, though, by allowing you to RSVP to an event right from your
inbox. New invitations will have an RSVP dropdown; just click that and
let the event organizer know if you'll be attending. All "yes" and
"maybe" responses will automatically be added to your default calendar.
16. Add Events With Public Calendars
I long ago decided it wasn't worth it to manually add every holiday
to my calendar, but not knowing when Passover or Father's Day were going
to land each year was a real problem. Luckily, Google Calendar has that
covered with
Interesting Calendars, a huge assortment of public calendars that cover just about any holiday and more.
Click the caret next to
Other Calendars, select
Browse Interesting Calendars,
and then find the calendar for your country's holidays. Once you've
subscribed, return to your calendar to find all the holidays added to
your year. If it all becomes a bit too much and you need to hide your
holiday calendar temporarily, toggle it off or on in the Other Calendars
list.
You'll find that Interesting Calendars offers a lot more than just
holidays. There are calendars for half a dozen major sports and teams
all over the world. Find your team, and subscribe to be kept up to date
on their match times and scores. If sports aren't your thing, there are a
handful of other calendars, including moon phase, stardates, and more.
Schedule Events with Colleagues Around the World
17. Set Working Hours
Users with paid Google Apps accounts (
hint: if your Gmail
address doesn't end in "@gmail.com", and you're using it at your
company, you're probably using Google Apps) can go a step further and
block off time when they are always unavailable. Find
Working Hours
in Settings and set the days and times you are available. Once saved,
anyone who tries to schedule a meeting with you outside of your working
hours will receive a notice that you're unavailable. Your contact can
then choose another time during your working hours or disregard the
warning and use the same meeting time.
Again, this is only available for Google Apps users, but there is a
workaround for everyone else. Just create an event titled "Closed" or
something similar for the hours you're unavailable, mark your
availability as Busy on the Edit Event page, and set the event to repeat
outside of your working hours. This is a cumbersome fix and may clutter
your calendar, but if you've hidden early morning and late night hours
as described above, you may never even see the event.
18. Stay on the Same Page With International Holiday Calendars
Sure, it's great to know the date for Thanksgiving or whether the
Fourth of July falls on a weekend, but it's also important to know when
your international colleagues are going to be out of the office. If you
coordinate with your company's China branch or collaborate often with a
friend in England, it's a good idea to stay on top of their holidays,
too. Just as you can add holidays for your country in Interesting
Calendars, it's not a bad idea to add holiday calendars for other
countries if closed foreign offices will affect your business.
19. Know What Time It Is Everywhere
Wondering why your traveling colleague isn't answering emails or
text, only to find it's midnight where she is? The Google Calendar World
Clock, found in Labs, has you covered. The clock widget will appear to
the right of your calendar, and you can choose which clocks to use in
the World Clock settings.
20. Add a Timezone to Your Calendar
You can adjust Google Calendar so that it's working in your time
zone, but you can also add additional time zones to your calendar. This
is especially useful if you live in one time zone but need to coordinate
with a colleague in another time zone. An additional time zone won't
affect how your own events and notifications work, but it will allow you
to set a specific time zone for events like conference calls or video
chats so that everyone invited knows when to be available.
Stay Organized and Improve Your Productivity
21. Keyboard Shortcuts
Google Calendar provides a number of keyboard shortcuts to make quick
event creation and editing simple. Enable keyboard shortcuts in
Settings, and click Learn More for a full list. You can jump among days,
switch your calendar view, and more, all without taking your hands off
of your keyboard. Be sure to check the
list of keyboard shortcuts to find the ones you'll use the most.
22. Search Your Past and Future Events
Use the search field at the top of your calendar to find any event in
any calendar. Your search can be as specific or broad as you like, and
Google will provide results from its other apps, including Drive and
Gmail, beneath the calendar results.
If you're not getting the results you need with the simple search,
click the caret in the far right of the search field to start an
advanced search. There are fields for the basics of an event–who, what,
and where–and you can specify a date range to narrow your results
further. You can even search a single calendar, making it a lot easier
to track down that one event you're looking for.
23. Get Notified About Your Events
Control your default event notifications in a calendar's settings by
selecting the caret next to your calendar's title. Set pop-ups to appear
or send yourself an email to remind yourself of an upcoming event. You
can set multiple default notifications in each calendar, but you can
also set up notifications from the edit event window in case a special
occasion requires a little more notice.
Or, you can use Zapier to send you an alert in the app of your choice
whenever you'd like: your email inbox, a team chat app like Slack, with
a notifications tool like Twilio or Pushbullet, or anywhere else you
want.
24. Stay Informed on the Go
Or, if you'd rather stay notified on the go, you can add your phone
number to Google Calendar to let it send your SMS messages. In the
Mobile Setup
section of Google Calendar's settings, you can add your cell phone
number—and you'll find that most countries and carriers are already
supported. Once you've verified your number, you can then pick which
notifications you'd like to receive via SMS or email—or both. That way,
you can know what meetings are coming up next, even if you don't have a
smartphone.
If you'd rather get your mobile notifications via an app, you can download the free Google Calendar apps for
iOS or
Android, and setup your mobile notification settings there.
25. Count Down to Your Next Meeting
If you're still having trouble making it to your meetings on time,
enable Next Meeting in Labs to create a countdown to your next event.
The countdown appears to the right of the calendar and give you some
details about the event in addition to how much time you've got to get
there. If you find you're always losing track of time and your boss is
beginning to notice your tardiness, this Labs widget can be a godsend.
26. Change Event Ownership
You can't always make it to an event you created and need to set a
new point person. Transferring event ownership solves the issue,
allowing you to set another person as an event owner.
To transfer ownership of an event, go to the Edit screen for the event, and select
Change Owner
from the Calendar menu. Simply transferring ownership of an event
doesn't remove you from the list of attendees, though, so you can still
attend even if you're no longer managing the event.
27. Enable Google Calendar Offline
If your internet connection is inconsistent, it's essential that all
of your online productivity tools work offline, too. Like the rest of
Google's products, Google Calendar doesn't give you offline access by
default, and leaves the choice up to you. If you're using Google Chrome,
just click the cog in the top right of Google Calendar and select
Offline from the menu to turn offline syncing on.
Only your default calendar will sync for now, and it may take a while
for the process to complete. To sync your other calendars offline, go
to Settings and choose the Offline tab. Select all of the calendars you
wish to access offline. Check the status of offline syncing my clicking
the Settings cog and choosing offline. You won't be able to turn off
offline syncing once it's started, but as soon as the process has
completed, you can disable offline access again.
Share Your Calendar
28. Share a Family Calendar
You may already have a family calendar hanging in your kitchen,
marked up with important dates and football practice times, but it makes
sense to keep a copy of all of those meetings and events where you can
access it anywhere. A family calendar that only one person can see or
edit isn't a lot of use, though, and that's where calendar sharing comes
in.
To share a calendar, hover over the calendar's name in the left
sidebar and click on the caret to access the Share This Calendar option.
From there you can add people to your calendar by email address. There
are a few different permission settings, including view only and event
editing, so you can control who can do what with your calendar.
29. View a Colleague's Calendar
You can make your calendar available to a colleague just as you would
to your family, but what if you want access to your colleague's
calendar? Under Other Calendars, enter your colleague's email address.
Google Calendar will send her an email asking for permission to access
her calendar. If she agrees, her calendar will appear in your list.
Don't worry, you can toggle its visibility on and off in you need to
free up some calendar space.
30. Create a Publicly Accessible Calendar
Communicate important dates and information to customers or clients
with a public calendar. When creating a new calendar, there's a checkbox
to make it public, but if you want to change the visibility of a
previously private calendar, look in a calendar's sharing settings.
Now that your calendar is public, you need to make it accessible. In
the Calendar Details tab of your calendar's settings, scroll to the
bottom to find your calendar's address. Simply share this address or
link it on your website to allow users to view it. Be careful with this
one, though, because any public calendar is visible in Google searches.
Only make a calendar public if you're sure it contains no personal
information.
From tweaking the way your calendar looks to making sure that you see
the most important events—and only those—these tips should help you get
Google Calendar working the way you want. But we might have missed your
favorite calendar tip. If so, be sure to share it in the comments
below!
Source: https://zapier.com/blog/google-calendar-tips/
