Making the most out of Google Calendar
- Tara Hodgson
- Sep 18, 2018
- 4 min read
Updated: Feb 23, 2021
Hey! Tara here, and thanks for checking out my blog. I update every Tuesday with posts about studying tips, advice and I also talk about productivity and organisation too. If you want to keep up to date with my latest blog posts I’d love it if you subscribed to this blog.
So it’s no secret that Google is pretty popular. The amount of apps, add-ons and general ease to use for most of these helps to make any Google product one students have a chance at loving, and, I love Google Calendar.
Below is how I use my Google Calendar (and how to use it efficiently)
How to use Google Calendar
So above is the standard month layout of the calendar. Normally on a calendar you’d just add events, maybe have a system using symbols or colours to denote different types of events or important dates. On something like Calendar this can get a bit too much like a wall of text so…
I use this. Different calendars and all are colour coded. Why do this?
Well:
It’s easy to filter, just uncheck or check whichever calendar is relevant. If I want to look at just lectures and classes then I can do that.
Having separate calendars means I can share just that calendar with someone to organise meeting up and I won’t have to share every personal detail with them.
It makes it less hectic. I know exactly what’s going on just by looking at it
It takes far less time. All work events created will be purple, I don’t have to spend the time to change each colour.
As a student Google Calendar is a life saver. No really, it is.
At the start of every semester / term put down exactly which dates you’ve been given for important events. Put these as one colour.
Deadlines
Signing up for classes/ last chances to change classes (just in case)
Reviews/ tutorials / meetings
Add in class times (include places and other relevant details in the notes if you like). Put these as another colour – I use a similar one since it’s still academic, just a different part of that.
If you want you can also add in lecturer’s office hours as a separate calendar)
If you’re currently working it’s useful to put that information in there straight away so you can see how that works with your classes and all that academic studying stuff.
You can clearly see if you have enough time to get to each place that you need to
If there’s any clashes it’s obvious straight away
Any changes that come up in your timetable can be edited really easily because of this
I also use Google Tasks as a quick, portable, simplified BuJo at times if I’m out and need to make a note of something I need to do (like making another appointment at a later date) and Calendar has a good integration with that. You can put due dates for these tasks in which will show up in your calendar. This is useful for any homework/ research you need to do since you can also add notes to this.
All of this makes you look super organised and like you know what you’re doing which at uni is half the battle … lecturers occasionally can ask you when they’ve set a thing for or if you have any other deadlines close to when they’re planning on setting them and it’s useful to know. Sometimes they can be lenient.
Outside of academia
If you’re not using it primarily to note down class times (if you are no longer a student or if you don’t want to use it for that) then Google Calendar is great for other things too.
You can make all day events if you’re travelling or if you have an important work week (say you’re a bartender and the bar is hosting events all of that week with special deals, for example) which don’t take up the hourly slots. If you have someone staying with you too, things like that.
It’s easy to share calendars with friends to meet up, especially if you’re both busy and travel a lot. It removes a lot of the “when are you free” “I’m not free then” talks and lets you get straight down to business deciding exactly how you’re going to spend your time when you’re together.
What it looks like in practice
This is an average month for me when I’m at uni. The above picture shows monthly view which I find easiest to use for Calendar but you can go for day, week, year, 7 day and schedule views which all have their own benefits
Each week is labelled with the academic calendar week and module week number.
All my classes are listed
My main hobby is included
I put exactly when I’m at work down on the calendar to keep track of that
Appointments are in there too pretty clearly
Integration
If any of those things above need to change then I can use my phone, while I’m on the go, and make any edits necessary. If I’m out and need to make an appointment then I can look at this very busy calendar and know exactly when I’m free and which other events can be re-arranged or missed.
Lots of apps and add-ons can be integrated with the calendar …
Such as Calendly. I don’t have a need for it but if you’re a tutor, lecturer or running anything where people will need to make appointments with you then this is pretty handy.
If you want to work on a group project but aren’t sure when people will be free then there’s the find a time option which is explained in more detail in the link. If people don’t want to use that then you could always use doodle polls to let everyone select when they’re free or not free and go from there.
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