5 best practices for mastering google calendar
TRANSCRIPT
A lot of people keep a calendar for work appointments, personal items, or for projects that need completed. And many
struggle with combining calendars, or knowing what’s on someone else’s calendar, like your partner’s or coworker’s.
Google Calendar solves all of these problems easily, allowing you to have multiple calendars layered on top of each
other, shared calendars, and so on. The subsequent slides will show you how to make your calendar experience even
better:
1. Explore the settings
2. Play with colors
3. Hide the clutter
4. Share responsibly
5. Get your calendar on the go
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1) Explore the settings● To access your calendar’s settings:
1. Click on the gear icon.
2. Click on Settings.
● Make sure you’re in the right time zone. if you’re working
somewhere else, or out of state for a while, why not adjust
accordingly?
● Check time format and set when the week starts for you.
● Play with the Custom View, too. You should adjust to that it
gives you what you need at a glance, and quickly check
upcoming projects, or scan for arriving deadlines.
● You’ll want to decide how your calendar handles invites, too,
especially if managing meetings using invites is SOP for your
organization
Fig 1. - Why not try Speedy meetings to get more done?
And while you’re at it, make them stand-up meetings, too,
and no one will stay past the first hour!
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2) Play with colors● Similar to Google Drive, each calendar can have its
own color. This comes in very handy for shared
calendars or project calendars.
● To change the color, just click the drop down arrow
next to the calendar name, and set a color for the
calendar.
● Tip: Appointments can still have its own color. You
can easily mark important meetings, or appointments
where your presence has been requested.
www.synergyse.com
Fig 2. - You can pick whatever colors you want, and
change at any time. I try to associate a color with
either importance, or type of project.
3) Hide the clutter
● Sharing calendars within Google Calendar is great, but sometimes you’re stuck with a bunch of leftover project calendars,
or calendars from coworkers that you never reference. So just hide them!
● To hide a calendar: click the drop down arrow to the right of the calendar name, then select Hide this Calendar.
● You can still access, or re-enable the viewing of the calendar from the overall settings.
● Remember, sometimes less is more -- if you don’t absolutely need to see the calendar, maybe it’s best left out of view.
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4) Share responsibly
● Make sure you check the settings for each person you share with, and give them the rights you intend to.
● If you’re operating within a Google Apps domain, some of your share settings may be overruled by the domain settings, in
which case you may wish to not share at all.
● Make sure your stuff isn’t shared by default.
● Note: Super Admin on an Apps Domain has full access to any of your calendars, regardless of what settings you enable,
so keep your personal stuff, well, personal.
www.synergyse.com
5) Get your calendar on the go
● Ensure you have calendar access on your mobile
device.
● Most devices interface very well with Google
Calendar, so take some time to set it up right, and
test to make sure appointments load, get deleted
correctly, etc.
● The Google Sync process helps you decide which
calendars you want synced on your device.
● Use Google Calendar for things you couldn’t do in
that other calendar program.
● You can create a new calendar for household
maintenance tasks, your daughter’s ballet lessons,
or your son’s Little League events.
● No need to cram it all on one single calendar, and
the ability to color code each calendar to match,
and to quickly toggle on and off from view, makes
management easy.
www.synergyse.com
Fig 3. - Google Sync - Making sure your device and online
calendar talk to each other, and speak the same language, is
crucial for appointment management, and to ensure you’re on
time for the party!
