All my life I’ve been a paper planner girl. I remember walking the school-supply aisle of the stores even when I didn’t need anything. I just loved it. And even after I started using digital calendars, I still had to have my paper planner nearby. Until just a few weeks ago. It became too much. I noticed I was literally just writing everything down twice. For years! So, I finally made the switch to exclusively using Google calendar. And I LOVE it!
Google Calendar can do so much more than I thought it could. I’m at a stage in my life where my tasks, appointments, deadlines, events feel super overwhelming. Thankfully, Google Calendar provides an effective solution to streamline my daily schedule and keep everything in order. So, are you ready to learn how to organize your life with Google Calendar? Let’s go!
How to set up Google Calendar
First, you need to make sure you have a Google account. Once you do, go to:
Your calendar will pull up and you are now ready to customize!
Setting up multiple calendars
Google Calendar allows you to create multiple calendars within your account, each with a specific theme or purpose. You can take advantage of this feature by separating your life into distinct calendars. You could do personal, professional, meal-planning, and one for each member of the family. The sky’s the limit! This separation ensures that you can easily toggle between calendars, enabling you to view specific aspects of your life without cluttering your schedule. Uncheck certain calendars to take them away from view. If you’ll notice in this screenshot, all my calendars are showing except “tasks” which is my to-do list. I will show what my calendar looks like with my tasks later on.
Color-coding your events
One of the easiest ways to organize your life with Google Calendar is color-coding your events. Assign different colors to various categories of activities such as work, personal, family, fitness, and more. By visually distinguishing your commitments, you can quickly identify the focus of your day and prevent overlapping schedules. To set a color for an event, simply create or edit the event, and choose the desired color from the available options. If you’re on desktop, you can even customize the hex code to make it the exact color you want.
Utilizing reminders and tasks
One of my favorite features is reminders and tasks. Google Calendar provides various reminder options to help you stay on track. When creating an event, set up a notification time that works best for you. Whether it’s a pop-up reminder, email notification, or a mobile notification, these reminders will ensure you don’t miss crucial events. Additionally, Google Calendar’s “All-Day” event feature is perfect for setting reminders for special occasions like anniversaries or important deadlines. Here is my calendar with all my tasks:
Sharing and collaborating
However many calendars you have, you can customize which ones you’d like to share with others. My husband and I share our family calendar, and all the kids calendars. He shares his bishopric calendar with, well, the bishopric. My son starts home MTC today (AHH!), and will get set up with a Google Calendar that is shared with his district. You can grant different levels of access, allowing others to view or edit your events. This feature is great for coordinating schedules, planning meetings, and organizing group events.
I’m pretty sure I have only scratched the surface on everything you can do with Google Calendar. And I’m still learning! So, please share in the comments if there’s a feature you love!
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