Get More Control Over Your Schedule With These Google Calendar Tricks
At Intelligent Office (IO), we’ve been longtime fans of G Suite, Google’s powerful set of cloud-based business tools. These tools make it easy to do things like set up an email account using your business website address, store and organize files, collaborate on documents and presentations and so much more.
G Suite has a wide range of tools for businesses, and Google Calendar is one of the most powerful and useful. It also has features and capabilities you might not be aware of, so read on to learn about four hacks that will boost productivity and help keep your schedule organized.
1. View your calendars across devices and accounts
Since all of Google’s tools are cloud-based, you can access them from any device with an internet connection. Calendar also integrates with other tools you might be using, like Apple Calendar or Outlook.
The export process varies depending on what type of device you use and which tools you want to integrate. For detailed instructions on how to sync and export calendars, visit the Google Help Center here.
2. Color-coded events
With Google Calendar, you can assign different colors to different events. You’ll know what your day looks like at a quick glance.
You can use as many colors as you want, but a simple scheme tends to work best. Here are two strategies to try:
- Assign color codes based on category. For example, time dedicated to deep focus might be represented with blue, meetings with prospective clients could be green and errands might be yellow.
- Or, assign colors based on priority level. Darker colors indicate your highest priority events and lighter colors are less important (and remember — making time for your personal life should be high on your list of priorities).
3. Tasks in Google Calendar
If you like having your to-do list and calendar side-by-side, Google has the perfect tool: Tasks. You can add a title, detailed notes, a date and time and subtasks. The subtasks feature is particularly helpful because it allows you to break big projects down into smaller components.
To enable this handy feature, navigate to the right hand side of your calendar and click on the circular blue ‘Tasks’ icon.
4. Keyboard shortcuts
With the keyboard shortcuts feature turned on, you can press keys to change your calendar view, quickly navigate to certain pages, view tasks, make changes to an event and more. To enable the feature, open Google Calendar on your computer, click Settings in the top right hand corner then select yes on “Enable keyboard shortcuts”.
Save the new settings, then try some of our favorite shortcuts:
- Create a new event: c
- Undo your last action: Ctrl+Z or z
- Refresh the page: r
- Go to today’s view: t
- Day view: 1 or d
- Week view: 2 or w
- Month view: 3 or m
- Search: /
Get some help managing your calendar
These four quick hacks are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to harnessing the power of Google Calendar. If you want to learn more, check out www.calendar.com, Google’s hub for everything you need to know.
Becoming a Calendar power user isn’t the only way to get a better handle on time management, though. You can also hire someone to help schedule and reschedule appointments, confirm meetings, arrange travel and more. There’s no need to hire a full-time employee, either. Hire a virtual assistant to help on an a la carte basis, and gain more control over your calendar.
