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Creating a calendar is a really good tip to managing time. It can be helpful for students and adults. A calendar is a printed table that has months, weeks, and days. To help manage time, putting important dates, test days, meetings, or deadlines can help remind us of things we need to do.

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If you own and manage multiple calendars, it can get messy quickly.

Perhaps you confirm meetings in your mind rather than in your calendar.

Or flip-flop between the various "tools that do it all" (without ever committing to one.)

And just maybe, it might not be that you have a calendar problem at all - but a delegation problem.

No matter what ails you the most about your scattered scheduling systems and calendar woes, there are plenty of ways you can streamline your process to help you create more time. And wield more control over your daily commitments.

Let's talk fundamentals first.

Three fundamentals that facilitate a greater sense of organization and control

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of optimizing your calendar for ultimate productivity (or simply less time spent scheduling!), we need to talk about the three key things that can provide greater control over your day.

#1 - A routine (that includes a daily schedule)

Procrastination strikes when we lack an intentional routine.

Without one - we flip flop. We put things off. We pretend we'll find time later.

"As children, routine gives us a feeling of safety. As adults, it gives us a feeling of purpose." - Brianna West.

There is no doubt that without some sense of order and predictability in your days, weeks, and months, you're more likely to feel scattered and incapable of achieving what you want.

But a deliberate routine can build stability and structure into your daily life. Providing that essential purpose and helping you follow through with your intentions.

Whether digital or analog, having a system for keeping your most important tasks top of mind is productivity 101.

You don't have to look too hard for task-management apps (like Asana, Basecamp, or Todoist). And there are multiple books to help you perfect your process, like:

The Checklist Manifesto

Getting things Done

The Effective Executive

And my personal favorite - Personal Kanban

That said, to-do items are meaningless if you never schedule the time to do the work.

This is why - along with an efficacious task management system - you need...

#3 - A calendar that keeps you on track and focused

While I don't advocate scheduling yourself down to the last minute (flexibility and appropriate boundaries are often more effective) - putting the things on your calendar that either:

1. tend to slip your mind,

2. are incredibly important, or

3. you always put off

Will remind yourself to do them and reserve the space to take action.

The added benefit is that once you schedule something, you can forget about it until the time comes to do it. Whereas if you leave it to float around in your mind - flicking back into your thoughts at the least convenient times - you'll feel like you're constantly on the hook.

"If it's not on your calendar, it doesn't exist" -Ramit Sethi.

Scheduling things makes life (and execution) easier. It's that simple.

Beware! Not all schedules are created equal

In his famous essay, Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule, Paul Graham highlights a fundamental difference in the work days of different kinds of operators:

There are two types of schedule, which I'll call the manager's schedule and the maker's schedule.

The manager's schedule is for bosses. It's embodied in the traditional appointment book, with each day cut into one-hour intervals. You can block off several hours for a single task if you need to, but by default, you change what you're doing every hour.

As a manager, scheduling can be as simple as finding an open time slot, booking someone in, and the work is done.

But as Paul notes:

There's another way of using time that's common among people who make things, like programmers and writers. They generally prefer to use time in units of half a day at least. You can't write or program well in units of an hour. That's barely enough time to get started.

When you're operating on the maker's schedule, meetings are a disaster. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon by breaking it into two pieces each too small to do anything hard in. Plus you have to remember to go to the meeting.

As a maker, scheduling a meeting requires significantly more forethought. And as you can imagine, interrupting critical focus time isn't ideal when you're knee-deep in solving a new problem.
In other words - meetings cost some people more than others.
But simply being aware of these two different work modes (even if you play both roles!) will make it easier to structure your day and week around how you like to work. And what responsibilities you have.

Calendars Perform Two Core Tasks: They tell you what to do and when

"When" is arguably the most significant productivity and planning question you can ask yourself.

And with an optimized process for filling and maintaining your calendar, you can streamline the way you organize yourself and your most important tasks and meetings.

But when talking about optimization, it's good to get clear on what you're hoping to improve (so that whatever solution you create - has a meaningful impact.)

Consider these three questions to help you figure out where to focus:

1. What are you optimizing for?
More time? More connection? More focus?
Stripping your calendar of meetings isn't the best approach if you're optimizing for connection and reaching new people. On the other hand, if you're lacking significant focus time, you may want to dial those types of high-touch appointments right back.

Get clear on your intentions behind "why" you want to optimize your schedule, and then let that clarity light the path forward.

2. What can you automate?

Automation is an incredible way to optimize for more time. Mainly because there will always be tasks that you can let tech handle.

But often, it's hard to figure out what to automate first.

So here are a few things to ask yourself when thinking about what you could be automating:

What tasks do you perform the most frequently? Jobs you do often or on a set schedule are perfect for automation.

Does it use software/SaaS products from start to finish? Tasks that involve moving data between apps are all prime opportunities.

Does it require creativity, problem-solving skills, or emotional intelligence? If it's a tedious, simple task that doesn't require complex thinking, an automation tool like Zapier can probably help handle it.

3. Can you throw money at the problem?

Often a significant bottleneck to gaining control of your schedule (and handling the admin required to maintain it) - is that you're not paying for the features you need.

If you have tools doing some of the work for you - but you have so far put off investing in the paid version - this is your permission to go ahead and spend that extra $15 a month to make your life easier.

Save Time, Stay Organized: 28 calendar hacks that keep you on track

Okay, now we're getting to the juicy stuff - the tactics and techniques you can employ that will change how you work and optimize how you schedule your time.

You'll notice we've divided this list into two different categories:

What you can do to improve the way you manage yourself and your schedule (i.e., the behavioral and habitual changes you can make); and

What tech you can try to simplify and automate your management systems (including Google-specific hacks for calendar management, SaaS options to consider, and, of course, how to use SavvyCal to make scheduling a breeze.)

Ten behavioral changes you can confidently make:

1. Put everything important in your calendar

Getting in the habit of using your calendar to help you follow through is incredibly effective.

You're likely already conditioned to check your phone reasonably consistently. So adding in prompts to execute the important stuff is a no-brainer.

As the saying goes: what get's scheduled, get's done!

2. Time block (and don't forget downtime, focus time, and free time)

Time blocking won't make you magically more productive. But it will help to create intentional space for your priorities.

And if you require more flexibility - rather than trying a blanket approach (i.e. adding in recurring slots that apply indefinitely) you can make time-blocking a consistent practice at the beginning of your week.

So you can determine what will have the most impact for the next seven days.

3. Use your calendar like it's a VA

A good VA is someone who manages up. They let you know what's on for the week and remind you of those important meetings and critical to-do's.

Whenever you enter tasks or meetings into your calendar, ensure you set reminders. And that any necessary resources are attached and ready to go for when you need them.

4. You could also - hire a VA!

A good question to ask yourself if you're struggling to maintain a doable schedule or to keep on top of everything is:
Do you have a calendar problem or a delegation problem?
If you have more money than time, consider a virtual assistant to free up your time. Even saving 10 hours a month can be a game-changer.

5. Give your calendar entries context

A tiny (but notable) refinement is to add in a little extra info when you add something to your calendar.

If you have a meeting or call with someone - make a note of what it's about or why it's happening. This can help you differentiate between the various types of meetings and tasks that might pop up.

It could be as simple as adding "Virtual Coffee Date with Carl" to signify a more relaxed and stress-free meeting style. Rather than seeing yet another "Zoom call" on your agenda.

6. Set boundaries around meetings

If you're someone on "the maker's schedule" (or simply dislike meetings), set some boundaries around when and how often you have them.

This can look like:

No meetings on Mondays or Fridays.

All meetings are held after 3 pm.

Only three 1:1 sessions are allowed each week.

Taking control of your schedule and making it easier to manage your calendar is more about making it clear for yourself (and others) when the right time to do certain things is.

7. Connect your personal calendar with your business calendar to avoid competing appointments.

Connecting your calendars is another simple tweak, but it can significantly affect how you run your week.

Everyone has an overlap between their personal and professional lives. And given that so many of us work from home - it's impossible to avoid some schedule clashes.

But you can ease those issues if you make sure that ALL your calendars talk to each other.

8. Check your calendar at the start and end of every week, so you know what to expect

Setting the expectation isn't just good practice for clients and customers; you must also make it a habit for yourself!

Don't wait until the day to decide what to do, or remind yourself of your commitments.

In as little as ten minutes, you can do a quick check at the start and end of your week to review what's on, where you expect to be, and give yourself the appropriate time to prepare for what's to come.

9. Check your calendar every evening and prep for the next day

Taking the last point one step further, add a check of your calendar and what's on for the next day to your end-of-day wind-down routine.

All the apps in the world can't compare to simply reviewing the day ahead the night before and making a mental (or physical) plan.

10. Allocate specific days for scheduling meetings and tasks.

If you have multiple brands or clients to engage with - theming your days to focus only on one of them can help reduce context-switching and allow you to focus.

Even if you only theme the first two hours of your day, you know you're only working on one thing for that period. It can make a big difference in how much progress you make.

5 Google Calendar-specific hacks to help you out:

1. Add a secondary timezone

As an Aussie who works mainly with US clients, the bane of my existence is dueling with timezones. I can't tell you how many times this conversation has happened:
"Wanna catch up at 10 am Thursday?" "Sure thing...Wait, do you mean my Thursday or your Thursday?"
But, you can alleviate some of these timezone headaches by adding a secondary timezone to your Google calendar.

Go to the General tab in Settings.

Select Time Zone and check Display Secondary Time Zone.

Choose your desired secondary time zone from the dropdown menu.

You can also add a label to each time zone for easy identification.

You'll see both timezones displayed on the side of your Calendar view now:

2. Create a default reminder time

If you get into the habit of popping everything important in your calendar, then it's a good idea to set a default reminder time (and type) for when you add something new.

You can always individualize this function if you need to, but not having to fiddle with it every time can be handy.

I hate email notifications, so I keep mine in-app. And my default is set to 15 minutes prior. If it's something that I need to prepare for, I'll often add a "day before" reminder, too (but do so manually).

3. Use the "create new event" shortcut

Super simple, but such a time saver.

Type cal.new in your Google Chrome browser, and voila! Up pops the new event screen.

Unrelated to your calendar (but just as helpful) are the doc.new and sheet.new equivalents for creating new documents and spreadsheets. Type them into the browser search bar, and you're ready to roll.

4. Create multiple calendars and color code them

Color coding your calendars can create excellent clarity (at a glance) when viewing your schedule.

If you're a parent and have a lot of events or tasks associated with your kids, you can create a new calendar for your child, color code it, then add all their events under that calendar.

Alternatively, if you have more than one brand or business but only one email address - you can use the "create new calendar" to easily maneuver between the two.

You'll notice the new calendar shows up under the "My Calendars" section when you're viewing it in your browser.

5. Receive a daily agenda email

We talked earlier about how helpful setting expectations upfront for yourself is. Well, this little trick comes in handy if you need a short email reminder of everything you've got on for the day.

Go to Settings and select Settings For My Calendars.

Select the calendar you wish to receive notifications from.

Under Other Notifications, select Email next to Daily Agenda.

Unfortunately, there are no controls for when this email gets sent. But you will receive your daily agenda in your Gmail inbox at 5 am (according to your set time zone).

7 Tech Tools to Take Advantage of:

1. Sync it (iOS only).

Let's start simple with syncing to your native calendar app (this is for Apple peeps!)

I don't open Google Calendar much, and I don't like their app. So I use my Apple calendar exclusively.

You can sync your Google Calendar with your Apple Calendar easily.

You can also do the same for Outlook. Here's how to sync your Outlook calendar with your iOS device here.

2. Shift - a desktop app for streamlining your accounts, apps, and workflows.

If you're sick of shifting between your accounts and logging in, you can use Shift to connect them all (plus your favorite web apps and tools).

Then you can customize your workstation to suit your purposes.

The best thing is the no-fuss toggling between accounts from one screen.

3. Biscuit - A browser to organize your apps.

Another option for reducing tabs in your browser and eliminating the need to shift between multiple apps to organize your schedule and daily demands.

With Biscuit, you can add your favorite apps. And you won't need to spend time looking for them within your mountain of tabs.

I like that you can see a clear separation between your work and life.

4. Airtable - Bring information from external tools into a single, centralized table.

You can route multiple calendars to your Airtable account and work from there to give a complete view of your commitments and tasks.

A great feature is that you can sync multiple calendars, including team calendars.

Check out this support doc for setting up this function.

5. Sunsama - A daily planner for busy professionals.

This tool can help you make better decisions and focus on your priorities rather than simply reacting to your schedule.

You can pull in tasks and commitments from other apps and set reasonable goals for what you want to accomplish each day. Jobs you don't get to today automatically roll over to tomorrow.

It can act as your single source of truth if you're after an alternative to using your calendar for schedule management.

6. Motion - AI that helps build your schedule. Automatically.

Many people struggle to figure out what to do every day. And that takes up valuable time and energy.

With Motion, you can use artificial intelligence to take scheduling off your to-do list.

You can combine all of your calendars - work and personal - into one view. Add in your tasks as you need to. And then let the algorithm prioritize everything for you.

7. Reclaim - Smart time blocking for your calendar.

We mentioned time blocking earlier, and Reclaim makes this more accessible than ever.
This is where SavvyCal comes in.
It's another tool that uses innovative technology to take the effort out of slotting things into your calendar.

But of course, there is still the actual task of scheduling important meetings into your calendar. This is where many people despise wasting time. And hate the back and forth required to confirm a time that suits everyone involved.

Let's take a look at what it can do for you.

Six ways SavvyCal can eliminate your scheduling woes

1. Ease of use (for everyone)

Let's just get this out of the way first: having a scheduling link doesn't make you an egomaniac (despite what this angry Twitter man might think.)

In almost every scenario, sending a calendar link is preferable to some inane email back and forth, struggling with time zones, scheduling conflicts, and enforcing preferences and boundaries.

It saves time, reduces friction, and simplifies scheduling.

Of course, many scheduling apps have failed to take into account the commitments of everyone in attendance, which has made it feel like more of a one-sided interaction.

SavvyCal fights that by integrating your calendar AND your guests. Allowing recipients to overlay their calendar on top of yours to find mutual availability easily.

2. Team scheduling at the click of a button.

Organize a meeting collectively - show times when everyone is available and include everyone on the invite.

Assign one person - with the "round robin" approach; you can pick one attendee to be the organizer.

If you have a team, scheduling a meeting with a suitable time for everyone involved can be incredibly difficult.

But with SavvyCal, you have two options to combat this:

Plus, with the meeting polls feature, you can invite people to vote on a set of times to meet and book the one that works best.

3. Connect all your calendars to avoid conflicts

Whether you're organizing a meeting for work, your personal life, or your side projects, you can check for conflicts across your calendars and set which calendar you want to store each meeting in.

4. Use time blocks to control your availability

With SavvyCal, you can create naming conventions that find scheduling availability based on the calendar events you make.

You can also create different links for different meeting purposes. This allows you to quickly customize your availability depending on the event's purpose.

5. Protect yourself from meeting overload.

We discussed how being more intentional with your time can lead to greater focus and purpose.

And one of the best ways to reduce meetings and interruptions (and the context switching they illicit) is to set limits for how many sessions can be booked per day, week, or month.

SavvyCal makes sure you can always reserve time for deep work.

6. Present ranked availability windows and offer proposed times to meet

While you can't control someone else's availability and preferences - you can make yours well known!

With SavvyCal's ranked availability windows, you can take back control of your schedule by encouraging recipients to pick the optimal time (while remaining flexible).

You can also generate a snippet of text to propose times in just seconds. Recipients can pick a time to meet in just two clicks.

It's not all or nothing - it's a process.

If you're overwhelmed by all the options we've mentioned above, don't be!

Behavioral changes and setting boundaries around meeting times can often act as a "quick fix"; and

Using a tool like SavvyCal to save time with the back and forth of scheduling can be a god-send when you're inbox is already overflowing.

Because optimizing your calendar isn't something you can do in a day.

It's a process that will take time to implement.

You don't need to rush it, but you do need to do something if you want to feel more organized and save some time.

Then, when you have some capacity to test out some more robust tech tools (and are willing to invest in the cost of these potential time-savers), you can work on building these systems into your current workflow.

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Calendar Optimization: 28 Scheduling Hacks To Save Time and Stay Organized

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No matter what ails you the most about your scattered scheduling systems and calendar woes, there are plenty of ways you can streamline your process to help you create more time. And wield more control over your daily commitments.

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The GTD process involves five steps: Capture ideas and tasks, Clarify what they are and what action is needed, Organize them into appropriate lists or categories, Reflect on these items through regular reviews, and Engage by taking action on the most appropriate next step.

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Setting reminders is a great trick to manage your time. Setting reminders is where you set a note to yourself to remember. These reminders are helpful to not forget tasks, deadlines, or important things that need to be done. Setting reminders before a big event can be helpful to ensure that you don't forget. Reminders can be set on your electronic devices or on paper.

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8 Ways to Use Calendar Reminders to Keep Your To-Do List in Check - Calendar

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Integrated reminders in your calendar app of choice can be the difference between arriving on time for a meeting and making a bad impression.

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A google calendar can help you keep up with a lot of dates just like any other calendar but the google calendar has easier access when you are on a computer, Chromebook, or any other device. When you use a google calendar it sets up some dates off of what you already have in the computer. That makes the set up process ten times faster.

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Remember the milk is a cite that helps you keep up with your tasks to do that day and will remind you when to do it right at the time that you set it. This cite can help you on a really busy day if you think there will be a chance you will forget what you need to do. You can set any reminders you need whether its from work or to calling someone after work.

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This app is a self-care app that keeps you completing task to keep the pet alive. You can earn points for completing tasks like breathing exercises, guided movement, and goal tracking, and then grow and customize their digital pet and home. The app uses goal setting, journaling, and mood tracking, and keeping mental wellness and making healthy routines more rewards.

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Rapid Planning Method is a technique used for time management where it focus on achieving specific results, knowing the purpose behind them, and creating a plan to achieve these goal. It is a helpful goal-setting technique used to get our goals achieved with a plan.

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How to Use the Rapid Planning Method at Home and Work | Motion | Motion

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Explore Tony Robbins’ Rapid Planning Method as an alternative to never-ending to-do lists and a tool for personal and professional success.

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Todoist makes the world's #1 task manager to organize your work and life. Tell me more

Do you ever feel like you spend more time thinking about doing your tasks than, well...actually doing them? Worrying about everything on your to-do list can be exhausting, especially when the list doesn't seem to get any smaller. When information piles up in your head, you feel stressed, overwhelmed, and uncertain

Getting Things Done - or GTD for short - is a popular task management system created by productivity consultant David Allen based on a simple truth: the more information you have bouncing around inside your head, the harder it is to decide what to do first.

Allen observed that our brains are much better at processing information than storing it ("your head's a crappy office"). The GTD method lays out a workflow where you can dump all this mental clutter into an external system and organize it so you can confidently answer "What should I be working on?" at any given moment without worrying you might forget something important you need to do later.

Copy the GTD setup

Todoist makes is easy to capture and organize all your "open loops". Copy our templated GTD setup in a click.
See the setup

Try GTD if you...

Worry about forgetting small details

Wear lots of hats in your job and life

Get stressed by an unorganized workload

Start lots of projects but have trouble finishing them

Feel overwhelmed by the amount of things you need to keep track of

Seek a sense of control over personal and professional commitments

Have never GTD'd before (everyone should GTD at least once in their lives 😉)

In this guide, you'll learn the art of Getting Things Done from principles to workflows along with the most intuitive way to implement them. We'll focus on how to GTD with Todoist, a powerful duo if you're ready to simplify your life, but the same principles apply no matter what app you use.

Prefer watching over reading? We've got you covered with a companion video for Getting Things Done. Check out the video below. Or, if you enjoy the quiet solitude of reading, keep going for a deeper dive.

What is Getting Things Done (GTD)?

The Getting Things Done method is a system developed by productivity consultant David Allen in which you capture tasks and ideas in an external system to declutter your brain, allowing you to concentrate on the execution rather than remembering everything.

We love the GTD methodology because it:

Supports stress-free productivity

Increases a sense of control

Encourages planning

Provides a structured approach to managing tasks

Manages daily routines and long-term goals

But how do you get things done?

This method includes five simple practices to systematize the clutter in your brain. Here's a Getting Things Done overview with a simple step-by-step guide:

1. Capture tasks and ideas: Capture anything that crosses your mind. Nothing is too big or small! These items go directly into your inboxes.

2. Clarify actions: Process what you've captured into clear and concrete action steps. Decide if an item is a project, next action, or reference.

3. Organize and schedule: Put everything in its place. Schedule your tasks on your calendar, delegate projects to others, file away reference material, and sort your to-do list.

4. Review your system: Frequently look over, update, and review your lists for improvement opportunities.

5. Engage in today's tasks: Focus on the tasks you've scheduled for today and get to work on the important stuff.

GTD doesn't require a specific tool, app, or product. Allen doesn't even make a case for digital over analog systems. Rather, the key to any lasting productivity system is to keep it as simple as possible and to use it as often as possible.

Your tool should be versatile enough to handle your most complex projects yet simple enough to maintain when you're low on energy.

Now, let's break down the five GTD steps in more detail.

1. Capture

Capture anything that crosses your mind - tasks, events, ideas, book recommendations, etc. - and store it outside your brain in an inbox. In the Get Things Done method, an inbox can be any physical or digital space where you collect the chaos in your head (your to-dos and thoughts) to organize them later.

Quick GTD tips to capture information:

Don't worry about organizing the information, just free your mind first.

Use a visual system to understand your tasks and projects at a glance.

Stick to one reliable tool to avoid scattering information across too many places.

Don't limit yourself to tasks - capture ideas, reminders, references, or commitments.

Have your notebook, Todoist app ready to capture ideas anytime, anywhere.

In Todoist, your inbox will be the default place for all your tasks and ideas until you can organize them.

To add a new task to your inbox in the web or desktop app, click the "+ Add Task" button in the left corner or simply press the "q" key on your keyboard. Todoist will add your task to the inbox by default unless you specify a project.

If you're having trouble identifying tasks or the things you need to do, start with the following steps.

Do an initial mind sweep

Start with a full mind sweep of all the "open loops" you can think of - anything you might need to take action on in the future. This includes personal projects, work tasks, commitments, or things you want to do someday.

Add these tasks to your Todoist Inbox as soon as they come to mind. If you struggle to think of more tasks after adding a few, spend a week taking notes of the tasks or commitments you generally do - both work-related and personal. Consult the GTD trigger list to help jog your memory for commitments you may have forgotten.

Capture new tasks right away

Whenever a new task comes to mind, make it a habit to immediately add it to your Inbox and organize it later. To capture tasks as quickly as possible wherever you are, we recommend installing Todoist or your app of choice:

As an app on your computer

As an app on your phone

As an extension for the web browser you use (for adding websites as tasks)

As a plugin for the email client you use (for adding emails as tasks)

Todoist syncs across platforms - computer, phone, web browser, email client, smartwatch, or smart home assistant - so you can enter tasks anytime, from anywhere.

If you have multiple inboxes like your email, a messaging tool for work, or apps to keep notes on reference materials, you can use Todoist to consolidate them in one place.

Remember: The goal is to keep your GTD system as simple as possible. Having your tasks or thoughts in multiple inboxes can lead to a lot of context-switching, which adds clutter instead of taking it away.

Integrate Todoist with email and messaging tools:

Use Todoist's plugins for Gmail and Outlook to quickly add emails as tasks

Forward emails directly to your Todoist inbox using your project forwarding address.

Turn messages into tasks from your team messaging tools like Twist or Slack.

Capture reading & reference material:

Take photos of business cards or event reminders and attach them to the relevant task's comments.

Attach files from Dropbox, Google Drive, or your computer to any task to read or work on later.

Connect a reading app like Pocket with Todoist via our IFTTT integration and have a Todoist task automatically created every time you add an article to Pocket.

Download Todoist for Chrome, Safari, or Firefox to save any URL to access later.

Use the Todoist share extensions on Android or iOS to share pages from mobile apps as tasks.

2. Clarify

Clarify everything you captured into concrete actionable steps. Now, that your inbox is full of tasks, ideas, notes, commitments, etc., it's time to go through each item refine it, and add as much information as you need to prevent having to puzzle over it later.

For example instead of:

"Call mom," type "Call mom to discuss birthday dinner" and attach a list of ingredients to go over with her.

"Taxes," type "Discuss tax documents with Mary" and attach Mary's contact number.

"Project Ryan," type "Email Ryan with project updates and next steps" and include pointers to cover in the email.

In Todoist, you can enter a task name, provide a detailed description, set reminders, assign priority, add labels, set a due date, attach files, specify a location for commitments, and assign the task to someone.

3. Organize

Organize your tasks by category, set priorities and due dates, and sort them into the appropriate place. In reality, the steps to Clarify and Organize can happen in tandem as you clean your inbox, but it's helpful to think about them as separate actions.

To organize your tasks, do one of the following (will go into specifics on how to do each step next):

Use the two-minute rule, when a task takes less than two minutes, complete it right away.

Delegate tasks to someone else, if possible.

Delete tasks that are no longer actionable.

Assign a due date to items that need to be done at a specific date and/or time.

Create a project for tasks that require more than one step to house all of its sub-tasks. Then identify the next action you can take to move the project forward.

File away non-actionable reference items (e.g., a file, document, article, contact information, etc.) in a separate reference project or attach them to the comments of the relevant task or project.

You can use our Getting Things Done flowchart to aid you in deciding what to do with actionable tasks and whether to delegate, defer, or do them immediately.

There are many different ways to organize your tasks with the Getting Things Done methodology, but we recommend using a combination of projects and labels.

One-off tasks

These are tasks that take longer than 2 minutes but only require one step. For example, "reply to Josh's email about project pricing" or "renew car tabs." You don't want them cluttering up your inbox, but they also don't belong in any other project.

To handle one-off tasks in Todoist, create a new project called One-Off Tasks and move them from your inbox to there.

To move tasks from your Inbox or from one project to another in Todoist, you can:

Drag and drop your task from the inbox to the project by clicking on the grey "handle" to the left of the task name and dragging it to the project name in the left-hand menu.

Type "#" into the task name field to pull up a list of all your projects. Then, select your project from the list or type the project name to narrow down the results.

Projects

You'll find that many of the tasks you wrote down are actually projects. In the GTD philosophy, projects are any item that requires more than one step to complete. For example, "Paint the bedroom" is a project because it includes other tasks like getting paint samples, picking a color, buying supplies, prepping walls, etc.

Here's how to handle projects in Todoist:

Create a new project for each multi-step item you identified as you were clarifying your tasks.

Move the associated tasks from your Inbox to the appropriate project.

If you think of other steps, add them as new tasks inside the projects.

Areas of focus

In GTD, areas of focus are groups of projects based on multiple areas of responsibility in your life. But you may just want to separate your projects between "Work" and "Personal." If a task doesn't fit within the scope of any of your areas of focus, it may be time to reassess if it's something you want to spend your time on.

Here's how to group your projects based on areas of focus using sub-projects in Todoist:

1. Create a project for each area of focus. This project won't have any tasks in it; it's just for visual organization.

2. Drag and indent your projects underneath the high-level "Folders" you just created to turn them into sub-projects.

3. (Optional) To create even more visual separation between your areas of focus, assign a different project color for each area.

Keep your project list clean by collapsing your sub-projects underneath the parent project. For example, while you're at work, you can keep your work projects in view while your personal projects are hidden and vice versa.

To keep things simple, finish setting up your GTD system before creating any sub-projects. This will give you a sense of your workflow so you can come back and organize your projects into broader categories later.

Next actions

These are tasks with a clear, concrete action you'll do at the next opportunity (e.g., "Email James the budget for the office party"). Next actions are separate from future actions - steps you'll take eventually but do not need your focus right now.

Identify the next action for each project by tagging it with the label "@next." To add a label, simply type "@" into the task field and start typing the task name.

To see an overview of all your next actions, go to "Filters & Labels" in the left-hand menu and click on the "@next" label to view all of your items.

Tasks that must be completed at a specific date or time. When you have a task with a specific due date or time, schedule it. But don't overdo it. The GTD method suggests not relying too much on due dates. It's easy to get overly optimistic about what you can achieve and end up overwhelmed by missing deadlines.

Stick to assigning due dates only for tasks that absolutely need them. For everything else, trust your next actions list and do a weekly review of all your tasks to keep things manageable.

To add a due date on Todoist, you can:

Click on the Schedule field and select a date and time from the calendar.

Type the due date and/or time into the task field using natural language. For example, you can type "next Monday at 8 am" and Todoist's Smart Date Recognition feature will automatically recognize and highlight the due date. You can even type in recurring due dates, like "every other Wednesday", for tasks that repeat.

You can move items with due dates from the inbox to the relevant project or to the One-Off Tasks project if they aren't associated with a multi-step project.

Agendas

Some of the items you capture in your inbox will be reminders of things you want to bring up with someone else rather than next actions. To keep track of these agenda items:

Create a new project called Agendas.

Create a new sub-project underneath Agendas for each person you need to touch base with on a regular basis. For example, your boss and any direct reports. You may also want to create sub-projects for each regular team or project meeting you have, like Marketing Weekly.

Add the items you need to bring up as tasks in the relevant agenda sub-project.

When you meet with that person or come to the meeting, pull up the relevant project to see a list of all of the items you need to cover.

(Optional) Share your agenda projects with the relevant people so everyone can see, add, and even assign items to discuss.

Reference materials

Reference materials are non-actionable items that you need to save (e.g., tax documents, reading material, spreadsheets, Word docs, phone numbers, etc.). While they aren't tasks themselves, they're often needed to complete a task later.

You can organize these kinds of supporting reference materials in Todoist by attaching them to the relevant task or project in the comments:

When you're ready to start the task or project, you'll have all of the information you need close at hand.

You'll likely also have reference materials not associated with a specific task or project. For example, an article you saved from the web for later, a file with important information, or a gift idea for your partner's next birthday.

You can keep track of these in Todoist. Here's how:

Create a new Reference project.

Create new sub-projects underneath the Reference project for each type of reference list. For example, Gift Ideas, Birthdays, Contact Information, Recipes, etc.

Move your reference material tasks to the appropriate project by dragging and dropping them from your Inbox or typing "#" into the task name field followed by the project name.

To collapse your reference sub-projects, click on the grey arrow to the left of your Reference parent project. This helps remove visual clutter from your list.

Waiting for

These are items that have been delegated or are awaiting action by someone else. For example, if you need to finish writing a blog post but are waiting on your editor to get you feedback on your last draft.

Identify these tasks by tagging them with the label "@waiting_for." Keep @waiting_for tasks organized inside the projects they're related to or inside the One-Off Tasks project if they're unrelated to other tasks.

Someday/maybe

These items are ideas for things you want to do in the future but don't have the bandwidth to work on now (e.g., places you may want to travel, books to read, new projects you may want to try, ideas for blog posts, etc.).

You want to be able to review these tasks later, but you don't want them gumming up your system now. Here's how to organize the someday/maybe tasks:

Create a new Someday/Maybe project.

Add all of the tasks and/or things you want to do in the future but aren't actively working on.

(Optional) Add sub-projects for specific types of "Someday/Maybe" tasks. For example, you may want to separate Someday/Maybe - Personal and Someday/Maybe - Work projects

Review your someday/maybe projects when time and energy open up to take on new work

Tasks that can be delegated

If you can delegate a task to free up your own time and energy, you should. In Todoist, you can share projects with people, assign them tasks with due dates, and collaborate in comments.

Your sharing setup will be different depending on your circumstances. Here are 3 ways you could set it up:

Create a separate shared project for each person you collaborate with (you could even reuse your Agendas sub-projects for this purpose).

Create a workspace dedicated to your team.

Share existing projects that involve heavy collaboration ad hoc.

Or you could use a combination of all three approaches.

Quick Tip: You can search for all of the tasks you've delegated using the query "assigned by: me". It's a handy list to reference during your weekly review.

Contexts

Contexts allow you to focus on what you can actually get completed, given your current circumstances. If you're at your office, you don't want to waste time sorting out all the next actions you have at home. With contexts, you can identify tools, places, or people required to complete a given task.

Following the project approach we laid out above, the easiest way to add contexts is with labels. GTD recommends the following contexts:

Computer/internet

Home

Office

Errands

Calls

Anywhere

You can also add others to help you quickly sort your tasks based on your current context. Some people like to add an Email context to take care of all their emails at once. Others add labels for the amount of time a task might take.

For example, if you have just 15 minutes before your next meeting, it's helpful to be able to identify all the tasks you could do quickly with a @15_min label. For most people, it's more useful to create an "Offline" label rather than an "Internet" one for tasks you can do when you don't have an Internet connection.

Quick Tip: Don't go overboard and start creating labels for everything. For your GTD system to work, you need to build a simple system that allows you to add the correct labels to each task. The fewer labels you have, the easier this will be.

4. Engage

Here is where all that time spent clarifying and organizing your tasks pays off. Your Getting Things Done system is now fully complete with actionable items organized into logical categories, ready for you to jump in!

When it's time to engage with work, you have fewer decisions to make and fewer reference materials to find. To see what needs to get done you can see upcoming tasks with due dates, sort tasks by label, or create filters to see your next actions based on context.

Next, let's explore some ways you can check what needs to get done in Todoist, based on your preferred sorting method.

Today and Upcoming views

When you're ready to sit down to work, click on Today in the left-hand navigation menu to see any tasks that you must complete today. Open Upcoming to see what's coming down the pipeline this week and any week in the future.

View Next Actions and Contexts via labels

To view a full list of next actions across all your projects, type "@next" into the Search bar at the top of your Todoist app.

You can sort your tasks by context by doing the same. For example, if you search for @errands, you'll see a list of tasks with the @errands label that can be completed while you're already out and about.

Alternatively, you can go to "Filters & Labels" and select the label you want to check to see all the associated tasks.

Create more custom task views with filters

The real GTD magic happens when you create your own custom task views in Todoist using filters. Filters are essentially saved searches that sort your list with one click. You can use filters to search for tasks based on:

For GTD, the most relevant labels will likely combine "@next_action" with an area of focus or a context. For example, to set up a filter for all the next actions you can do at work, use the query "##Work & @next_action." This filter shows all tasks in your Work project and associated sub-projects with the @next_action label.

The most useful task views will depend on your specific needs, but these are some of the most common useful ones:

Filter Query

Shows you a list of:

@next_actions & today

All next actions and all tasks due today across all of your projects

@next_actions & ##Work

All next actions in your Work project and all of your work sub-projects

@next_actions & @Home

All your next actions you can do at home across all of your projects

@waiting_for

All tasks you're waiting on something to complete across all your projects

@email

All tasks that involve emailing someone so you can complete them all at once and minimize the time you spend in your email

To keep your most important task views easily accessible, add them to your favorites so they appear at the top of your navigation menu above your Projects list. Go to "Filters & Labels," and click the heart-shaped icon next to the filter you want to add. This will place the filter in your navigation panel for quick access.

5. Review

Each week, set aside time to review your lists, organize your tasks, and keep your system running smoothly. The review helps you adapt to changes, refocus your attention, identify next actions, and reflect on your workflow.

David Allen has called this weekly review a "critical factor for success" because frequent review of your system ensures you aren't just doing things, but that you're doing the right things.

To get started, import Todoist's GTD Weekly Review template into your projects list. This template includes all the steps you need to complete your review each week. Customize the template by adding sub-tasks or task comments to hold the lists of all your inboxes and your current areas of focus or to track reflections on your week.

What to read next

The weekly review is a powerful productivity ritual regardless of whether you GTD or not, so we wrote a standalone guide for how to run your weekly review.

Schedule your weekly review by setting up a recurring date in any task field. Simply enter your date in natural language, like "every Sunday at 5pm," and Todoist will automatically recognize and schedule it when you save the task.

There's a reason why millions of people around the world swear that Getting Things Done has changed their lives. This system not only helps you check off tasks from your to-do list but also enables you to plan effectively for the future.

Having a reliable system in place that you can count on to guide you through your tasks can significantly reduce your mental load. It frees your mind from constantly thinking about what needs to be done, allowing you to focus on actually doing those things.

While strict GTD isn't for everyone, you're bound to pick up a habit or two that will help you worry less and do more. Everyone interested in having control over work and personal commitments should try it at least once.

Give it a shot and see which aspects of GTD work for you!

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Getting Things Done: A Simple Step-By-Step Guide

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This is the last GTD guide you'll ever have to read. Learn the task management system used by millions of people to organize their work and lives.

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Summary

The Eisenhower Matrix is a task management tool that helps you organize and prioritize tasks by urgency and importance. Using the tool, you'll divide your tasks into four boxes based on the tasks you'll do first, the tasks you'll schedule for later, the tasks you'll delegate, and the tasks you'll delete. In this piece, we'll explain how to set up an Eisenhower Matrix and provide tips for task prioritization.

Making a to-do list is the first step toward getting work done. But how do you determine what to tackle first when you don't have enough time to do everything in one day? With effective prioritization, you can increase your productivity and ensure that your most urgent tasks get immediate attention.

The Eisenhower Matrix is a task management tool that helps you distinguish between urgent and important tasks so you can establish an efficient workflow. In this article, we'll explain how to set up an Eisenhower Matrix and provide tips for task prioritization.

What is the Eisenhower Matrix?

The Eisenhower Matrix is a way to organize tasks by urgency and importance, so you can effectively prioritize your most important work.

Dwight D. Eisenhower-the 34th President of the United States and a five-star general during World War II-presented the idea that would later lead to the Eisenhower Matrix. In a 1954 speech, Eisenhower quoted an unnamed university president when he said, "I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent."

Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, took Eisenhower's words and used them to develop the now-popular task management tool known as the Eisenhower Matrix.

The Eisenhower Matrix is also known as the time management matrix, the Eisenhower Box, and the urgent-important matrix. This tool helps you divide your tasks into four categories: the tasks you'll do first, the tasks you'll schedule for later, the tasks you'll delegate, and the tasks you'll delete.
Create an Eisenhower matrix template
How to distinguish between urgent and important tasks

Urgent and important may seem like similar words, but when analyzing them in terms of the Eisenhower principle, the difference between the two is crucial. Differentiating between urgent and important within the Eisenhower Matrix can help you identify which tasks you should jump on and which tasks might be better handled by other team members.

Urgent tasks require your immediate attention. When something is urgent, it must be done now, and there are clear consequences if you don't complete these tasks within a certain timeline. These are tasks you can't avoid, and the longer you delay these tasks, the more stress you'll likely experience, which can lead to burnout.

Examples of urgent tasks may include:

Important tasks may not require immediate attention, but these tasks help you achieve your long-term goals. Just because these tasks are less urgent doesn't mean they don't matter. You'll need to thoughtfully plan for these tasks so you can use your resources efficiently.

Examples of important tasks may include:

Once you know how to distinguish between urgent and important tasks, you can begin separating your tasks into the four quadrants of the Eisenhower Matrix.
Create an Eisenhower matrix template
The four quadrants of the Eisenhower Matrix

A long to-do list of tasks can feel overwhelming, but the goal of the Eisenhower Matrix is to go through these tasks one by one and separate them by quadrant. Once you can see your tasks in their designated categories, you'll be able to schedule them and accomplish your most important work.

Quadrant 1: Do

Quadrant one is the "do" quadrant, and this is where you'll place any tasks that are both urgent and important. When you see a task on your to-do list that must be done now, has clear consequences, and affects your long-term goals, place it in this quadrant.

There should be no question about which tasks fall into this quadrant, because these are the tasks that are at the front of your mind and are likely stressing you out the most.

Quadrant 2: Schedule

Quadrant two is the "schedule" quadrant, and this is where you'll place any tasks that are not urgent but are still important. Because these tasks affect your long-term goals but don't need to be done right away, you can schedule these tasks for later.

You'll tackle these tasks right after you tackle the tasks in quadrant one. You can use various time management tips to help you accomplish the tasks in this quadrant. Some helpful strategies may include the Pareto principle or the Pomodoro method.

Quadrant 3: Delegate

Quadrant three is the "delegate" quadrant, and this is where you'll place any tasks that are urgent but not important. These tasks must be completed now, but they don't affect your long-term goals.

Because you don't have a personal attachment to these tasks and they likely don't require your specific skill set to complete, you can delegate these tasks to other members of your team. Delegating tasks is one of the most efficient ways to manage your workload and give your team the opportunity to expand their skill set.

Quadrant 4: Delete

Once you've gone through your to-do list and added tasks to the first three quadrants, you'll notice that a handful of tasks are left over. The tasks left over are tasks that weren't urgent or important.

These unimportant, non-urgent distractions are simply getting in the way of you accomplishing your goals. Place these remaining items on your to-do list in the fourth quadrant, which is the "delete" quadrant.
Create an Eisenhower matrix template
4 tips for prioritizing your tasks

The best way to understand the difference between urgency and importance is to use the Eisenhower Matrix, but you may still find yourself struggling to prioritize your tasks. Here are some tips that can help you with prioritization as you sort your tasks in each quadrant.

1. Color-code your tasks

Color-coding your tasks is a tactic that can help you visualize high-priority items. As you go through your to-do list tool, try giving yourself four colors based on level of priority. Use the code as follows:

Green = Highest priority items

Yellow = Second-highest priority

Blue = Third-highest priority

Red = Not a priority

Once you've labeled your tasks by color, these colors will directly translate to your Eisenhower Matrix. Your green tasks are your "do" tasks for quadrant one. Your yellow tasks are your "schedule" tasks for quadrant two. Your blue tasks are your "delegate" tasks for quadrant three, and your red tasks are your "delete" tasks for quadrant four.

2. Limit tasks to 10 per quadrant

Even if you have a lot of tasks on your to-do list, try to limit your tasks to 10 items per quadrant. This will keep your Eisenhower Matrix from becoming cluttered and overwhelming.

You can make multiple matrices, but limiting your task list to necessary action items will ensure you're beginning the prioritization process with no time to waste.
Tired of not Getting Things Done? Master the GTD method in 5 steps
3. Make personal and professional to-do lists

Another way to limit the number of items on your Eisenhower Matrix is to create separate matrices for your personal and professional to-do lists.

Your work and personal tasks require different timelines, resources, and methods, and they'll likely require different thought processes as well. In order to effectively manage your personal and professional goals, you'll need to divide and conquer.

4. Eliminate, then prioritize

Eliminate unnecessary tasks first to effectively prioritize. With this strategy, you'll address quadrant four before moving on to quadrants one, two, and three.

As you skim through your to-do list, assess what items you've written down that don't need to be there.

In fact, 60% of our time at work is spent on work about work-things like sharing status approvals or following up on information. If you can quickly scratch off items, go ahead and do so. This will speed up the prioritization process, and you'll likely go through a second round of elimination on the back end.

Eisenhower Matrix example

To get a better understanding of what tasks you may place in each quadrant of your Eisenhower Matrix, we've gone ahead and provided some examples for you here.
Examples of tasks you may include in quadrant 1: Examples of tasks you may include in quadrant 2: Examples of tasks you may include in quadrant 3: Examples of tasks you may include in quadrant 4:
Remember that it's best to have separate matrices for work and home life so you can tackle your to-do lists using methods best suited for the time and place.

Build your Eisenhower Matrix with task management tools

Sorting through your to-do list is the hardest part of the Eisenhower Matrix, but with automation, you no longer need to do this step manually.

Use task management software to determine which of your tasks are of highest priority. With task management, you can categorize, color-code, and delegate tasks to your team. Let the Eisenhower Matrix increase your productivity so you can achieve your goals in less time.
Create an Eisenhower matrix template

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Be Productive at Home: 11 Tips to Promote Efficiency [2023] * Asana

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The Eisenhower Matrix is a task management tool that helps you distinguish between urgent and important tasks so you can establish an efficient workflow.

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There used to be a time when arranging a schedule meant pulling out a diary and flicking through the pages. It meant looking past the scribbles and the unreadable handwriting to find a spare space. It meant seeing the appointments you missed because... well, you forgot to look at your diary in time. And it meant looking for an hour that also suited the schedule of everyone else attending the event. It was always such a pain. However, this guide to Google Calendar will show you how to make the most of this digital calendar.

The growth of digital calendars had made it all so much easier. You no longer need to keep a diary with you at all times. As long as you have your smartphone with you, you'll have access to your calendar. The calendar will send notifications so you can be confident that nothing is ever forgotten and no appointment is missed. And, you can even share your calendar with others so that you can see what a colleague has lined up and can find a spare time to meet. It's a whole new way to organize time, and it's been a remarkable change. It's also been a sudden and unnatural change.

Changes to Google Calendar

In October 2017 that lack of clarity became clear. Google upgraded its calendar for the first time since 2011. It rolled out a tool that's cleaner and neater that clears away some unnecessary features (and a few that people enjoyed.

The result is an immensely powerful time management tool that we don't really know how to use. We content ourselves with adding an event and we're surprised, sometimes unpleasantly, when our Google calendar automatically adds an event taken from a private email. But we only use a fraction of its functions and we ignore many of the ways in which our calendar can improve our lives.

In this guide to Google Calendar, we're going to take you through all of Google Calendar's amazing functions.

We'll start with the simple stuff. Then, our guide to Google Calendar will go all the way through its advanced settings and look at a couple of ways to extend the powers of Google's free time management platform.

The good news is that you don't need to do anything to get started with Google Calendar. As long as you already have a Google account, and about 1.2 billion people do, you don't need to do anything more than open calendar.google.com or bring up your app. If you've signed into your Google account you'll already be logged in. If you don't yet have a Google account, when you open that page, you'll be invited to register. It's free and doesn't take more than a couple of seconds.

If your smartphone uses Android, then you should find that Google's calendar app is already installed. If it's not on the home page, you might find it buried in your app drawer. It's the one that looks like this:

Once you've opened Calendar in your browser or on your mobile device, you don't need to do anything else. It will already be set up and ready for use. Both the website and the mobile app have a settings icon that lets you play with the way that Google Calendar looks and works-and you might also need to bring your old calendar into your new one.

Importing Your Calendar

Few people start their calendars with a blank slate. If you've been using a different calendar application, such as Outlook or Apple Calendar, you'll need to import your data to Google Calendar. That shouldn't be hard!

First, open your calendar on your computer. That will make it easier to save your data and move it around, and in any case, importing to Google Calendar can only be done on a computer, not on a mobile device.

In your source calendar, look in the menus for an Export function. Calendar data can take a number of different formats. CSV is the most compatible with Google Calendar but if you're exporting from an Apple Calendar, choose vCard. Make sure that you know where you saved the data!In Google Calendar on your computer, click the settings icon at the top right. Under Import & export, choose Import.

Other Calendar Importing Options

That method should be straightforward enough, and it shouldn't present you with any problems. But if moving from an Apple Calendar to Google Calendar doesn't go as smoothly as you'd like, there is a second method.

First, you'll need to change the default calendar on your iOS device to your Google account. On your iPhone or iPad, open Settings > Calendar, and under Default Calendar, choose your Google account. Click iCloud > Accounts, and slide the button so that it's in the On position.

The next bit is where it starts to get fun.

Log in to iCloud and click the Calendar icon. Choose the calendar you wish to export and click the broadcast icon on the right. You'll see a window marked Calendar Sharing.

Check the box marked Public Calendar. Apple will generate a hashed URL. Copy the URL into your browser but change the "webcal://" at the start of the address to "http://" before pressing Enter. You'll be prompted to save your calendar data as an .ICS file.

Once you've saved the file, don't forget to uncheck the Public Calendar box. In Google Calendar, open Settings > Import & export > Import and import the file.

Calendar Website Settings

Once you've set up your Google Calendar, you can start playing with the settings. The settings icon for Google's Calendar website is at the top right of the screen.

Click the cog and you'll produce a drop-down menu, with the Settings at the top of the list. Choose Settings and on the left of the screen, you'll see a list of all of the settings that you can change in your calendar.

Language And Region

Some of those settings are straightforward. Google will set the Language and region based on the information it collects automatically from your Internet connection but you can change them if you want to use a language and region that's different from your current location.

Time Zone

The same is true of your Time zone but this is a little more complex. Create an event, and Google will automatically use your local time. Invite someone else to join that event, and they'll see it in their local time too.

So if you were writing in your calendar in New York that you had to place a phone call to someone in California, you might see the time of the call as 11am, but your colleague would see it as 8am. As you travel, the times used by your calendar adjust to the local time zone.

That change should happen automatically. Google will adjust its time zone based on your IP address or your telephone data. But if it doesn't happen-if you're using a VPN, for example, or not connected to the Internet-you can also display different time zone settings in your calendar wherever you happen to be, and you can change your calendar's time zone settings manually.

To show more than one time zone setting on the calendar, open Settings, choose Time Zone and check Display secondary time zone.

You'll then be able to select a second time zone from a drop-down menu, and you'll even be able to apply a label to those time zones to differentiate them. (In practice, you're unlikely to need those labels; the place name should be sufficient.)

This is also where you can uncheck the option to update your primary time zone to match your current location, keeping the times on your calendar to one zone regardless of your location.

And if you're using multiple calendars, a feature we'll discuss later, you can sometimes create different time zones for each calendar. Click the calendar in the Settings, then select Calendar Setting and change the time zone. Not every calendar allows that change but it can be a useful way to keep track of someone else's events in a different time zone.

World Clock

On a computer, you can also add a World Clock to your calendar. What it actually means is that you can add the time in various parts of the world to the side of your calendar.

Choose the World Clock option in General > Settings, check Show world clock and add the locations you want to choose. They appear on the left of the screen below the month view.

This isn't something you're going to see on your smartphone but when you're pulling up your Google Calendar on your wider screen, being able to see the time in different parts of the world can be a nice touch.

Event Settings

Event Settings are more complex-but they're also important. This part of the Settings includes a number of features that are often ignored but which significantly affect the way that your calendar will operate.

The first setting is the default duration of events that you add to the calendar. This can be a great source of frustration. Although Google lets you set specific times for each event you create, when you add an event, it will start with a set period of time. You can choose between 15, 30, 60, 90 and 120 minutes.

Use the right setting and you'll make creating events quick and simple. Get it wrong, and you'll be forever adjusting your events when you create them. The time setting during event creation, especially on a smartphone can be a little fiddly.

Think about the sorts of events that you're most likely to be created. Will they be half-hour phone calls? One-hour meetings? Or two-hour sessions? Pick your most common duration and you'll already have saved yourself some time.

Meetings

Beneath the default duration settings is the option to create Speedy Meetings. Check the box and 30-minute meetings will automatically be scheduled to last 25 minutes while longer meetings will be cut by ten minutes.

The aim, says Google, is to improve efficiency but a better use is when you're scheduling back-to-back meetings. If you have to run from one meeting to another, it's worth using that time to give yourself the chance to reach the meeting room, grab a breath of fresh air or take a bathroom break.

The Default Guest Permissions isn't the most user-friendly piece of design but it sets the functions that other people invited to an event can use on that calendar event. There are only three options: guests can modify an event, changing the time, location or the duration, for example; they can invite others to take part in the event; and they can see a guest list of all the other people attending the event.

It's worth remembering that you can change those settings. If you want someone to be able to change the time of the meeting if they need to, or you don't want everyone to see who else will be there, those settings will give you more control over the entry in your calendar.

Invitations

The next setting is so unclear that Google had to add an explanatory note. The Automatically Add Invitations setting determines whether you see invitations automatically in your calendar or whether you'll only see them after you've accepted them. You have three options. First, add all invitations to your calendar. Second, put all invitations to your calendar but only receive notifications about the events you haven't declined. Or, third, choose only to see events that you've accepted on your calendar.

No one of those options is more efficient than the other but if your calendar is already crowded and you're looking to prune events from your dates, then only automatically inserting events you've accepted is a good place to begin.

Notifications

The kind of Notifications you choose to receive when you're sitting at your desk is important too. You can turn notifications off completely, restrict them to browser notifications, or you can go the whole hog and choose interruptive Alerts. Those interruptive alerts are pretty interruptive. If you're in the middle of working, the loud bongs they send-and don't forget that they'll be repeated on your mobile devices too-will certainly wake you up. If you find them too disruptive, this is the place to come to tone down the pain.

Finally, in this section, you can choose to automatically add video calls to events. Unless you're going to be using Google Hangouts for every event you create, you'll want to make sure that box is unchecked. It won't do you any harm but seeing an opportunity to make a Hangout call in every event description just clogs up the entry.

View Options

The View Options determine the appearance of your Google Calendar.

Again, these settings are hidden away down in the Settings menu but they have a direct effect on the appearance of your calendar both on your mobile device and on your computer. Some of them are also more useful than others. You probably don't want the calendar to show declined events, or show week numbers, a feature that places a number next to each week in the year. But choosing to reduce the brightness of past events will help to keep the calendar looking clean. Being able to view calendars side by side in Day View is likely to be very useful if you're using or managing multiple calendars used by a number of different people. Administrative assistants at big companies will want to make sure that they have that option.

The last three options allow you to change the day to start the week. Not all countries begin the working week on Monday and you might want to be able to look at a calendar that puts Saturday first and foremost. You can choose to start the week on Saturday, Sunday or Monday. You can also change the number of days visible in each view and add different calendars from around the world, such as Chinese calendars, a Hebrew calendar or a Persian calendar. Those dates appear in addition to the Julian calendar.

Events From Gmail

The next setting is particularly important. Google has the ability to scan incoming emails and add any events from Gmail it finds to your calendar automatically. It can be very useful. It means that when you order a ticket online or receive an emailed invitation to dinner when you check your calendar, you'll find those events already entered-often with a neat design. But if you're not aware that Google is reading your email in this way, it can be surprising. The settings allow you to turn the feature off.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Finally, you can enable keyboard shortcuts, a feature we'll come to later in this guide.

Those are the settings that are available when you use your Google Calendar online. But what makes the calendar so useful is that all of these entries remain with you when you leave your desk and pick up your mobile phone or your tablet computer. Your laptop or your monitor might be easier to read and use but the calendar on your phone is always with you. The settings on your mobile device vary only slightly from those on your computer-but are much less clear.

Google Calendar App Settings

At the top of the list is a link to General settings may of which are the same as those on the website but a few of which are unique to the app.

General Settings

The first general settings are straightforward. You can change the day on which you start the week, choose to use the device's time zone (a useful feature when you're traveling) and you can enter a time zone manually.

You can also choose to show week numbers and declined events, and change the default event duration from sixty minutes to one of five other options from fifteen minutes to two hours.

The next settings are more interesting. Notifications let you turn off notifications on the device or choose from a long list of different tones that will beep at you to remind you of the event, and toggle the vibrate settings.

It's worth bearing in mind that while all calendars will have the same notification tone (you can't create different sounds in the same way that you can create different ringtones) you can change the notification settings for each calendar. In Settings choose a calendar and choose one of the settings under Default notifications and Default notifications for all-day events.

Quick Responses

The last setting in this section is the most useful and probably the most overlooked. Quick responses let you choose one of four automated messages to send to guests of an event if you're running late or can't make it. Click on one of the responses and you'll be able to edit the text. To use the response, tap or click an event, select the guests and choose the response. You can change the text then too.

Return to the main settings menu and you'll find more settings to play with, few of which are entirely self-explanatory.

Events From Gmail

Events from Gmail is clear enough. Touch that menu heading and you'll be offered a switch that lets you toggle the ability to automatically insert details from events into the calendar just like on the website.

Events

The next option, Events, determines how events appear on your mobile calendar. You change the color of the block of time the event takes up on the calendar, and you can change the default notifications, adjusting the amount of time before the event when your phone gives you a ping. You can also add a second notification, and you can determine the settings for the notifications of events that take all day.

The next setting concerns the color of Reminders. These are entries that can only be made on Google's calendar app; while you can see reminders on your desktop, and you can change their colors, cross them out when you complete them and delete them, you can't create a reminder on your computer. You can only create an event.

We'll explain how to create a reminder later, but they're entries placed in the calendar that are renewed automatically every day until you mark them as done. They appear in the calendar with an icon in the form of a piece of string tied to a finger, and they're meant to be at least mildly irritating.

Phone

The setting marked Phone couldn't be less clear and Google provides no help in figuring out what it's for. On many mobile phones, it's also entirely irrelevant. These are entries that have been synced automatically with the device's own calendar app. So if you've started using the calendar that came with your Samsung or Huawei device then switched to Google Calendar, you'll find those entries already in place and you can change their notification settings and the color in which they're highlighted.

More

Finally, under a heading imaginatively titled " More," you can alter the settings of the data from any other calendars you might be using. Birthdays, for example, let you choose to add any birthdays listed in your contacts and from Your Circles on Google+. That's worth bearing in mind. If you've set up circles in Google+ and someone has added their birthday information, you could well find that your calendar includes the birthdays of a bunch of people you barely know. Switch the setting to "Contacts" and you'll keep your calendar personal.

Those are the settings. They're not all straightforward and they're present on both the desktop and the mobile app. They're also scattered throughout different parts of the app. Click the three dots after the list of each your calendars on the left side of your desktop screen, for example, and you'll be offered a palette to change the colors of the events from each calendar as well as the settings for that calendar such as the source of birthday data.

The good news is that once your calendar is set up, you really shouldn't need to touch the settings again. But if you find that you're seeing the birthdays of people you don't know or that the default duration of a meeting is a couple of hours, digging around in the settings will give you a better look for your calendar.

One of the most important features of Google Calendar is also the most confusingly named. Adding a calendar to your Google Calendar doesn't actually add a new calendar. Instead, it takes data from a different calendar and places it in yours. Unlike importing calendar data though, that data is constantly updated. You can see other people's events and, if you want, they can see yours. Each data source can be marked in a different color so that you can see where it's from.

Despite its clumsy title, the feature is really useful. It means that you can add information from just about any calendar to your own calendar. You can import the dates of religious holidays, the fixtures of your favorite sports team, moon phases, NASA launch schedules and a host of other events-including calendars shared by other team members, relatives, and friends. The only limit is the space in your calendar itself.

How To Add A Friend's Calendar

Adding a new calendar can only be performed on a computer; there is no option for adding a calendar to the Google Calendar app. But the option can be found on the site in two places

The most obvious place is on the left of the calendar where an option says, " Add a friend's calendar." Click the plus icon next to that option and you'll find that it's not only for adding a friend's calendar.

To add a friend's calendar, you'll need to start typing in the field that the text "Add a friend's calendar" masks. When you do that, Google offers you a list of your contacts with people who have made their calendars public.

Click on one of those contacts, and you'll be able to see their events listed on your calendar.

You can also try to add people whose calendars aren't public. Type in the email address of someone in your contact list who doesn't have a public calendar, and Google will notify you that you don't have access to their calendar. It will also allow you to request access.

Send your friend a message and, if they approve, you'll have added their schedule to your calendar.

Create A New Calendar

Being able to see a friend or partner's schedule might be useful. Sharing your own schedule with others will also have a use. But you'll probably want to hang on to your privacy and not share everything on your schedule. Your work colleagues might want to know the time of the staff meeting. They won't want to know where you're going for your anniversary dinner.

Google lets you create multiple levels for your calendar. Click the plus icon next to "Add a friend's calendar," and top of the list will be the option to add a new calendar.

Click that option and you'll be able to create a new schedule on your calendar with a unique name. You'd enter those appointments in that calendar and when you share that calendar with others, they'd only see those events, and not your dental appointments or your vacation trips.

Add Calendars Of Interest

What Google calls "calendars of interest" is where things start to get really interesting. You can add a friend's schedule to your calendar and you can create multiple schedules of your own to place in your calendar.

But you can also add a series of other calendars that have already been prepared. Click the option that says Browse calendars of interest and you'll be taken to the Settings page and a list of different calendars. They're organized into "holidays," "sports" and "other" which is only the phases of the moon.

Add those schedules to your own, and you'll see those holidays or those sports fixtures on your calendar. It's very simple and a very effective way to create a calendar that works for you.

Add Calendars By URL

The selection of "calendars of interest" will cover the most important schedules that you'll want to add to your calendar but there are plenty of others available online. You can add them by pasting in their URL.

Click the From URL option either from the plus icon next to the calendar or in the settings, and you'll be offered a field in which you can enter the URL of a schedule available on the Internet.

The calendars need to be in iCal format. iCalShare, for example, offers thousands of free calendars covering topics that range from religious holidays to NASA launch schedules.

You can also choose to make that calendar publicly accessible. If you're taking it from a public source, you won't need to.

Sharing Your Own Calendar

The ability to share your calendar with others is one of the most important features of Google Calendar. The process is also a little fiddly. Again, it can only be performed on the calendar's website.

Hover the cursor over the calendar you want to share and click the three dots that appear at the end of the line. On a calendar that you've created, you'll be offered the option to Display this only, an option that removes all the other schedules from your calendar. You can also choose a prepared color for that calendar (or mix a color of your own)-and you can move to the Settings and sharing page.

We've already seen how complex and comprehensive those settings can be so we can skip straight to the two settings that are relevant here.

Two Important Settings

There are two options for access permissions. The first is to make your calendar available to the public. That will allow everyone to see your calendar. It will even turn up in Google search results. You should think long and hard before choosing that option. It might be worth doing if you've created a calendar specifically to share the dates of your public events but for individuals, it's best avoided if you want to safeguard your privacy.

If you do decide to make your calendar public, you can also get a shareable link that you can give to others so that they can find your calendar. Without clicking the checkbox that makes your calendar public, that URL will have no use.

More helpful is the ability to share your calendar with specific people. Enter their email address and that person will have access to the data in that calendar: they'll see the events that you've entered in your schedule on their own calendars.

Share Your Google Calendar With A Group

One of the least known functions of Google Calendar is both one of its most useful and one of the fiddliest to use. While communications platforms like WhatsApp allow groups of people to exchange messages, Google does allow groups to share a calendar. It's a great way for voluntary organizations, church groups, schools and workplaces to share events.

There are a couple of ways to do it.

The easiest is to create a new calendar by pressing the plus icon next to "Add a friend's calendar" and choosing New calendar. In the settings for that calendar, you can Share with specific people and add each group member's email address individually. If you're only adding a few people, it's probably the best way to go.

Group Calendar Issues

But if you've created a large group, and especially if you want to do more than just share a calendar with that group, then it's worth first creating a Google group. You can do that at groups.google.com. The fields are pretty self-explanatory and it won't take you more than a few minutes to complete them.

When you're done and you've created the group, that group will have its own email address. It will look something like this: [name]@googlegroups.com. When you want to share a calendar that you've created to list that group's events, instead of entering the email address of each member, you'll be able to just enter the email address of the group. All the members of the group will have access to that calendar.

Bear in mind though that sharing the group to your calendar isn't enough for the group's members to see the group's events immediately. Each member will receive first an email with a link that they need to click.

Prioritizing Your Calendars

Google and its calendar are smart, but they're not geniuses. If you have multiple events on the same day, Google Calendar struggles to put them in the order you want to see.

The prioritization it uses starts logically. Events are presented in chronological order regardless of the schedule on which they appear. Therefore, if your personal calendar says that you have a staff meeting at 10 a.m. and your personal calendar lists a meal with your parents at 7 p.m., then the staff meeting will be listed first in your calendar and the dinner will be listed second.

But, what happens if you have more than one all-day event? Google can't tell which one it should list first so it lists them in alphabetical order. If your personal calendar stated that you were spending the day with your family and your work calendar reminded you that you were out of touch with the office that day, you'd see whichever all-day event comes first in the alphabet.

Google's order for all-day events is alpha-numeric. If you want to prioritize those all-day events, put a number before each of the event titles. It's a bit of a clumsy workaround, but it works.

It would have been helpful if they had called those calendars "schedules" or something similar to distinguish them from the actual listing of days and weeks that you can see on the screen. But, the creation of different calendars will be part of your time management workflow.

Now, you've created your calendar. It's set up the way you want it. You've added multiple different schedules. And, you've shared some of those schedules with friends, colleagues, or family. Now you get to place entries into that calendar. There are lots of different ways to do that-and more than one kind of entry.

How To Add An Event

You can add events both from the calendar website and from the app. What you can do on each of those platforms though is slightly different.

There are two ways to create an event on the website.

You can click on the plus icon at the bottom right of the page to see the full event creation form.

Or you can click on a date which will generate a mini form inviting you to fill in the event's most important details.

Add Event Mini Form

At the top of the form is the instruction to Add title and time.

Actually, all you type there is the title. This is what you'll see in the calendar-and remember that if you're creating more than one all-day event on the same day, those titles will be arranged in alphabetical order.

Next, you can choose between creating an event or a reminder. We'll come back to reminders later but the default setting is to create an event. You then get to enter a date. Because you clicked on a day to bring up the form, the default setting is that the event will last all day and will only take place on that day. Click on one of those dates though, and Google will offer a monthly schedule that allows you to enter different days. That single-day event can become a week-long happening such as a vacation or a conference.

Other Options

If it's not taking place all day, you'll also need to enter a start and end time by clicking Add Time.

Finally, if you've created multiple calendars, you can choose the calendar you want to use. That's important and easy to overlook. Choose the wrong calendar and anyone you're sharing that calendar with won't be able to see the event. Click Save, and you'll be done. The event will be on the calendar.

But you can do more. Press the More Options link next to the Save button and you'll be taken to a pretty detailed form with a ton of different options. Most of them are pretty clear but some demand a little thought.

Add Event Complete Form

After the title and the time is an option to change the Time Zone.

This isn't something that you're going to need very often but it might be useful if the event will take place in a different time zone. You can even start the event in one time zone and end it in another-useful if you're manually entering the details of a flight or listing a party on an ocean-going yacht.

You can then mark the event as lasting all day, and you can make it a recurring event. Clicking Does not repeat lists a number of different ways to mark the event as recurring so that you don't have to make a new entry every time. Google will offer to make the event daily, weekly, monthly, annually, every weekday or weekend, or just let you figure it out for yourself. For regular events such as weekly staff meetings, it's a very useful tool.

Event Details

The next section is more complicated. This is where you can enter the event details. You don't have to do this stuff, but it can be useful, especially if you're inviting other people to take part.

Start to add a location and Google will complete the address for you. That's not just a convenience. It also turns the location into a link that a guest can click to see on Google Maps. The more accurate you make that location information, the easier it will be for guests to find where they're going.

If you've changed the settings to remove conferencing you can click Add conferencing to bring back Google Hangouts. You probably won't want to, but you can't remove this option from the form.

Other Event Detail Options

The next option is the type of notification you can receive. This is more complicated than it sounds. You can choose to receive the notification by email or you can receive it as a notification in your browser or on your mobile device. You can set how long before the event you receive that notification in minutes, hours, days or weeks, and you can add more notifications just in case you-or your guests-might forget. If you're setting up an important event such as a wedding, for example, those repeat notifications sent a long way out can be useful.

You can then change the calendar on which the event will be posted, and you can change the color of the event. That can be useful too. In general, event colors will match the color you've set for the calendar but if you want a particular event to stand out, you can also give it a special color.

The next option relates to privacy. The event will have Default visibility. Anyone you've shared your calendar with will be able to see all the event details. They'll also be able to see those details if you change the visibility to public. If you set the event to private, then even people who can usually see your events won't be able to see the details of this one. Instead, they'll see that you're either busy or available depending on the setting you choose.

Finally, in this section, you can also include a description of the event. For most events, the title is likely to be sufficient. But adding some extra detail here-such as dress code or meeting topic-can be useful. You can even add attachments and links which makes the description feature particularly valuable when arranging a business meeting. Upload the agenda, for example, and people will know what to expect.

More Ways to Create Events

An area on the right of the screen lets you add guests so that they can see it on their own calendars, and allow them to engage with the event in different ways. You can let them change the event, invite other people to take part, and allow them to see everyone else who has been invited. Of those three, you'll probably only want to check the last box.

There are a couple more things that you can do when you're creating an event on Google Calendar.

At the top of the page, next to the Save button, is a drop-down menu called More actions. Pull that down, and you'll be offered a list of actions that you can perform on the event you've created.

More Things to Know About Events

Most of those options are fairly clear. You can Print your event and Delete it from your calendar. You can Duplicate it so that you can mark the same event at a different time or on a different day. And you can copy the event to a different schedule, such as your work calendar or your personal calendar. But you can also Publish the event, which gives you a URL that you can share with people, and you can Change the owner, which invites one of your contacts to take over management of the event's scheduling.

The last feature of event creation is the coolest. By the Event details link at top of the form is a second link that invites you to Find A Time.

Google doesn't do this automatically. Instead, it lets you browse through a calendar on which booked times have already been marked. Instead of asking everyone when they can meet, you'll be able to see the day for yourself and pick a time. If you want Google to do the searching for you, you'll need to click the link on the right that says Suggested times. That will offer a list of times when all the guests are available.

How To Add An Event From An App

Adding a detailed event from the website might well be the most convenient if you have a lot of text to create. If you're looking to add an event quickly, then using your mobile device might be more convenient. Click the plus icon in the bottom right-hand corner and you'll be invited to create your event.

You won't only be invited to create an event though. You'll also be invited to create a goal and a reminder. We'll come back to those but on an app an event is the last item on the list-though it is also the function with the biggest icon and the only icon in red.

Tap the Event icon and you'll be taken to a form similar to the one on the website. One significant difference is that attachments can only be made from Google Drive. If you have a document on your mobile phone that you want to share, then you'll need to upload it to Google Drive first.

You can also add an event by tapping a date-and delete one by sliding the event to the right.

How To Add An Event From Gmail

All of the event functions we've looked at so far have been pretty straightforward. Adding events, whether you're using a website or an app, shouldn't take more than a few minutes. But that's still more minutes than you might want to spend, and if you're adding something more detailed, such as a flight reservation, then you might want a method that's less fiddly and less likely to leave out some important detail.

One of the settings in Google calendar is called Events from Gmail. You can check the box marked Add automatically or you can leave it unchecked. Check that box and any event that arrives in your Gmail inbox will be added automatically to your Google Calendar. Google will note the date and pull out any other relevant details, including some that you might not have thought to add yourself.

Booking a Flight

For example, if you've booked a flight online, as soon as you receive the confirmation email from the booking site, you'll see an entry in your calendar that tells you where you're going, the flight number, the date and time, including the arrival time, the confirmation number, and the names of anyone flying with you-but only if they've shared their calendar. (You might also see a small icon that looks like a suitcase with the word "free" next to it. Sadly, that doesn't mean that the baggage is free. It means that you're listed on your calendar as free). Hotel reservations might include the check-in and check-out times.

If the airline changes the departure time or the restaurant changes the reservation time and notifies you by email,Google Calendar will update those details.

Event Notifications

Notification of events added from Gmail will be based on your default settings in Google Calendar, so it is worth keeping an eye on the time you're giving yourself. You might end up with an hour's reminder to get to the airport!

Events added from Gmail are also set automatically to private. Even if you've shared your calendar, only you will be able to see information that Google has taken from your email account. To allow people who share your calendar to see your flights, dinner reservations, and hotel books, you'll need to go into Settings and change the visibility next to Events from Gmail.

Private and Public Options

You'll be able to keep that event private so that only people with permission to make changes to your calendar can see the event; everyone else will just see that you're "busy."

You can make the event match your Calendar default so that people who can usually see the events on your calendar will be able to see the name and time of an event drawn from Gmail but only people who can make changes to your calendar will be able to see the rest of the event details.

And, you can choose to make an individual event public. You will only see those visibility options if you're sharing your calendar. However, it doesn't always work. Google will only take details from businesses involved in flights, hotels, restaurants and ticketed events such as concerts and movies. Those emails must also come directly from the website itself. Google won't take details from emails that have been forwarded, sent to a mailing list, or redirected from a different email account.

How To Add An Event From Google

Adding events automatically from Gmail is very cool, but Google can do even more. If you're logged in to your Google account, you can even add an event to your calendar from Google's search engine. Open Google.com, type the date and time of an appointment, and Google will offer you the opportunity to add it to your calendar.

You might have to play with the phrasing. "Schedule" works and so does "book." And you'll need to mention both the time and the day. Click the Create event link and the event will be added to your calendar. You'll then be offered the chance to edit it.

It's difficult to see when you would want to use this option. Tapping on the screen a few times on the calendar website or app is likely to be faster and more convenient than writing in the search engine. But it's still a neat trick.

How To Add An Event From Google Assistant

More useful is the ability to add an event to your calendar using your voice. Bring up Google Assistant on your mobile device and you can instruct it to add an event to your calendar. Tell it to "Schedule a doctor's appointment for next Friday at 3pm" for example, and it will create the entry then wait for your confirmation before placing it on your calendar.

Of course, you can do the same thing using the Assistant in Google Home. Fire up Google's speaker and you'll be able to add events to your calendar without touching a screen.

How To Create A Reminder

Press the plus icon on Google Calendar app and get three options. These include the option to set a goal, create a reminder, and create an event. Neither of those options is offered when you click the same icon on the computer but one of them is available. You won't see it when you click the icon but if you click an empty spot in your schedule, the mini-form that Google offers allows you to create both events and reminders.

Click that Reminder button and you'll given a form that invites you to enter a title, change the start date, indicate whether you want the reminder to repeat, and whether you want the reminder to take up the whole day or whether you want it to trigger a notification at a particular time.

A Reminder and an Event

There are two differences between creating a reminder and creating an event.

First, a reminder appears on your calendar. It's a little icon that has a finger with a piece of string tied around it. Second, if you don't delete the reminder or mark it as "done" on your calendar, it will still appear the next day.

While you can create a reminder on your computer, it's much more convenient to create one on your mobile device. Press the plus icon and then the Reminder option. This offers a list of automated reminders. These reminders include booking a restaurant through making a phone call, sending an email, returning goods and canceling a reservation. Each offers an automated list.

In theory, you should be able to create a reminder with just a few taps and without ever needing to touch the keyboard.

It's worth remembering though that the role of a reminder in a calendar is to bring back to mind something you've forgotten... and to do it in time.

How To Set A Goal in Google Calendar

We've saved setting a goal till the end of this section because it's so neat. All the features we've seen until now have been pretty simple and they've demanded work from you.

You need to enter your own event details and set your own reminders. Sure, Google can take details from your Gmail. However, some other company still needs to put those details in the message or you need to do it when you make your booking.

You can only set a goal on the app. Click the plus icon in the corner and choose the first option. Google will then offer a list of different goals that you might want to achieve and that demand time. They include exercise, building a skill such as learning a language, meeting friends, setting aside time for yourself, and organizing your life.

Goal-setting Features

Choose one and Google will offer a list of options. You can enter your own custom goal. Choose to learn a skill, for example, and Google will ask whether you want to learn a language, learn to code, practice an instrument or make art. Pick one of them and Google will offer another list, such as a list of languages, then ask you how often you want to practice, for how long and what time of day.

Google won't ask you which time you want to conjugate Spanish verbs or practice the violin. It will ask you whether you want to do it in the morning, afternoon, evening or any time. If something comes up, and you're unable to make the time that Google has found, your calendar will automatically look for a different time and reschedule. That can happen if you enter the second event at the same time as the goal or if you hit the Defer button when you receive the notification.

You can also edit the goal by tapping the edit icon. If you decide to complete a session early, you can bring it up on the calendar and hit the Did it button. When you delete a session, you can choose between deleting just that single session or all following sessions (and stop scheduling).

AI-Enabled

It's a very neat feature but what's really clever about it is that it encourages you to use your calendar. Also, the calendar learns. The feature uses a form of artificial intelligence to better understand your schedule. First, it searches your calendar data to find a time that suits you, removing the excuse that you don't have time to work out or practice your Spanish verbs. The more you use your calendar, the better the chances that Google will offer you a time that's genuinely available.

As you press "Defer" or edit the session to move it to a different time, Google will better understand your lifestyle and adjust accordingly.

How To Add An Event With A Key Press

Hit the Q key and Google Calendar will present the event mini-form allowing you to enter an event for the current day. It's fast and easy... as long as you want to add an event on that day.

The more you use Google Calendar, the more useful it becomes. However, users will only open their calendars if they can see at a glance the information they need. Google offers a number of ways to change the view of the calendar.

Give Your Calendar The Long View... Or The Short View

On the Google Calendar website, the view setting is at the top of the page. The monthly view appears like this:

Click on that "today" button though and all you'll see is a floating caption showing the date. Next, select the arrows and you can go backward or forward a month at a time. After, choose the month and the year. Nothing happens at all. It's not the best usability mix.

To change the view of the calendar on your computer, you'll need to open the drop-down menu at the top right.

Those options are pretty self-explanatory. The Schedule shows only a list of the events that you've placed on your calendar. One useful trick here is the ability to see multiple calendars in a single view. If you have access to the calendars of friends or colleagues, when you switch to Day view and bring up their calendars, you can see their days side by side.

Change Your Calendar View With Your Sidebar

There are a couple more neat tricks that you can do to improve the appearance of Google Calendar on a website.

On the left of the screen on the Google Calendar website is a mini-monthly view. Click a date on that calendar and drag the cursor, and the main screen will show just those dates.

It's an easy way to see adjust the view without fiddling with the drop-down menu. What happens next though is a little less obvious. The view that you've created now becomes your default view for your next click.

You can also remove this sidebar entirely. In the top left corner is an icon with three horizontal lines. Click that and the whole left sidebar disappears. You'll lose the mini-monthly view, the world clocks, your list of calendars and an easy way to add a friend's calendar to your own. But, you'll get a full-screen calendar with no interruptions.

On a mobile device, pressing that icon has a very different effect. It's the button that brings up the list of views. Those views start with Schedule this time, then run from a single day to three days, a week and a month.

Travel The Year With Your Keyboard

You can also view different parts of the year with single key presses. Pressing K or P will move you back through the year. Keys J or N will move you forward. Pressing T will take you back to the current view of the year.

You can also bring up the search function by pressing /.

Want To View Your Google Calendar Offline? Use The App

Old-fashioned paper diaries work anywhere. That used to be true of Google Calendar too. When Google redesigned its Calendar in October 2017, that option was missing from the new version. Mobile does give you some options.

Open your Calendar app without an Internet connection and you'll still be able to flick through your events and your days. You'll be able to add events to your Calendar and even set goals. As soon as you go online again, Google will update your online Calendar so that you can see the events you've added offline across different platforms, and Google will then calculate the schedule for your goals.

But, this doesn't work on the Google Calendar website. Try to add an event to the website without an Internet connection, and you'll be able to bring up the event form and you'll be able to enter the details. You won't see the results until you're back online. Use the app offline and wait till you're back online to use the website.

Change Your Calendar's Look And Feel

Finally, Google Calendar doesn't give you too many ways to change the design of the calendar. While you can adjust the colors for each event, you can't easily change the background image or insert pictures into the time slots themselves.

In fact, Google gives you just two options. Click the Settings icon at the top right of the website. This gets you to Density and color.

Choose that option and you'll get exactly two options for each. Modern (with white text) makes the text that appears on the colored event background white. The Classic color set uses black text. Every other aspect of the calendar looks exactly the same.

More Format Features

You can also choose to make the design Responsive or Compact. Add more than four or five items to a day, and when you fill the space in the calendar, Google will add a link to see more. Click that link and you'll get a pop-up that shows all the events scheduled for that period. Some users have found that the Compact view squeezes more items into the same space. Therefore, you can see more of what's happening at a glance. In practice, it makes little difference.

Adjusting the view of your Google Calendar can be a little fiddly. The options aren't as obvious. However, there are plenty of options to see your Calendar in exactly the way you want.

Google Calendar is oddly complex for a tool that has only a handful of features. But it could be even more complex. Compared to other time management tools Google Calendar still looks somewhat underdeveloped, despite its latest facelift. Before the October 2017 revamp, that would have meant using some of the features available in Labs, Google's testbed. Since the update, those features are not accessible. I however find it a little easier to use over Yahoo Calendar or Office 365 Calendar.

Google Calendar's Professional G Suite Names Rooms

Google offers free products and sells the data collected from those products. However, it also sells some of its services to businesses, including its Calendar. Companies that sign up for G Suite by Google Cloud pay from $5 to $25 per user per month. In return, they get an extended version of many of the free services. Additionally, they receive greater storage, an ad-free experience, and data loss prevention for Gmail and Drive. Plus, they have access to "a vault for eDiscovery and archiving."

Case Study Example

The big difference in Calendar for Google's paying customers is the ability to create rooms and describe resources. For example, a company with offices in London, Paris, and San Francisco could list available meeting rooms available at each. They could assign video conferencing facilities, whiteboards, and other useful resources to each.

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For large firms with multiple meeting rooms, it's a very useful tool, but it does take some setting up. Google says the feature sets the foundation for "future intelligent room booking." It hasn't said how that's going to work. However, it's something to watch out for.

Jason Savard's Checker Plus for Google Calendar Gives Quick Access And Pretty Backgrounds

Jason Savard makes Chrome extensions. This includes a series of Checker Plus tools that make mini versions of Google services available from a browser button. It doesn't offer a huge number of advantages. You can enjoy easier access when using a computer. The range of notifications is longer. It includes a voice notification that reads out the title of the event. The best feature is the ability to place a background image under your calendar. It only works inside the extension and unlocks once you've made a contribution. However, these features show how much more Google could do with its calendar.

Google has built a reputation for building tools that are both hugely valuable to users and free to use. The much anticipated revamp of the calendar in October 2017 brought a cleaner, more modern look. It incorporated some of the features that users had experimented with in Labs. However, some of the usability, especially on the website, is unclear. And, the lack of personalization feels like a major loss. In the end, Google Calendars come down to sharing, events and their details, reminders, and goals.

Google Calendars still feels like a work in progress. But, it's already both complex and essential. And, this guide to Google Calendar will help you leverage the best features.

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The Ultimate Guide To Google Calendar - Calendar

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There used to be a time when arranging a schedule meant pulling out a diary and flicking through the pages. It meant looking past the scribbles and the unreadable handwriting to find a spare space. It meant seeing the appointments you missed because... well, you forgot to look at your diary in time.

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Eisenhower Matrix is a great technique used for time management because it helps handle our tasks. The tasks are split into four columns based on how urgent they are. The columns are called to do first, schedule, delegate, and don't do. This is a really great technique to use to help prioritize your task throughout the week.

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Prioritizing tasks can be a very useful trick with time management. Prioritizing tasks can be getting tasks done throughout the week so we will not fall behind. Doing a few tasks every day can help us have time to do other work we may need to do in the future. It is a great way to manage your time.