Google Calendar Helps You Organize Your Everyday Tasks

Don’t you think it’s weird that there is no good alternative to Google Calendar? I mean, the thing is online, perfectly working with other Google’s services, it syncs to your mobile devices… Google Calendar is just great reminding you of your day-to-day activities.

However, it has some features that will probably help you even more, or give you a better experience. If you aren’t a Google Calendar user yet, try to become one. Trust us, once you get hooked into it, you’ll never find a better organizer . If you already are a Google Calendar user, read on because we have some great tips for you!

Setting the Settings

First off, you’ll need to set up Display Density to Compact, especially if you’re working on a 15″ screen or even something smaller (damn those netbooks). Now head over to the settings. Before you set up anything, open up the Labs tab and check them out. It’s recommended that you enable these labs:

• Hide Morning and Night;
• Gentle Reminders;
• Who’s my one-on-one with;
• World Clock.

You can enable the others as well, but these are essential for improving your Google Calendar setup. Back to the Settings – General tab:

You’ll find some basic options for getting everything set up, like the start of the week or time and date format. There’s also the option of setting up a default and custom view. The Default view is, as you can guess, the type of calendar that will be shown upon opening Google Calendar. Personally, I keep mine on a Month view, showing my tasks and events during the month.

Some other available views you can use are: Day, Week, Month, Custom and Agenda. You can enable the Year view in your Labs as well. The Custom view is the one you’ll set up in the settings. Try setting it to 5 days, so you’ll always see what you’ve planned in the next five days.

The Calendars Tab

The power of Google Calendar comes from its multiple calendars ability; you can add as many calendars as you need and have an overview of events in them. Make a calendar for your private stuff, school, work or your hobby and each of them will have a different color. For every event you create, you’ll have to choose the calendar it should be saved in, after which it will be colored accordingly.

In the Calendars tab you’ll see all of your calendars, including the shared ones! Yep, Google Calendar allows you to share a calendar with your coworkers. If you don’t need to share the whole calendar, you can share only certain events. If you make any change regarding the date or time of the event, everyone involved will be notified about the change.

In this tab you’ll also import calendars from all around the web – a calendar of a conference or a two week long trip.

Tasks and Events

There are two types of entries you can make in Google Calendar; tasks and events. Tasks are just your to-do’s which can have a due date if needed. Events are more complex and you’ll probably use them more.

Just click on a date to create a new event or task and fill the required information. Clicking Edit Event will open up some more advanced settings panel for you to choose options like the place of the event or some description, add a reminder, invite other people to the event etc.

If you’re creating a multiple day event, just select the days and an event will be created across them. There’s also the option to hide calendars if your overview gets too crowded, just click on the name of the calendar in My Calendars windows on the left of the overview.

Find a Time

Find a Time is a nice option which will be used mostly by large groups in order to find a time slot that suits everyone. Create an event and open up its details. Click the Find a Time tab and enter the date of the event and the time window in which the meeting can be held. Invite some guests and once they confirm a time, you’ll be set. Easiest time-finding ever!

It definitely takes some time to get around Google Calendar, so if you really want to grasp it, set it to be your homepage, just to be there, right in sight. Force yourself to use it and in a week or so (go ahead, make an event) you’ll come right to this posts comment section to say thanks for these tips 😉