Continuing with our tech talk, please welcome my guest today, Sarah Kimmel from Technology for Mommies, who I must say is much more qualified than I am to teach these things. Enjoy!
When it comes to scheduling your time, you may be using a white board in your kitchen, or a print out of the month on your fridge… Isn’t this the digital age? Don’t be scared to learn computers, this is the top 5 reasons I use Google Calendar, and you should too!
1. Multiple Calendars
I teach my children how to organize their time by creating routines for them. This way they know when it’s time for snack, or time to clean up! I also have a routine for myself I want to use. Next I have a calendar for my appointments, another for each child’s appointments, and another for my husband’s appointments. Lastly I have my blog editorial calendars, a calendar for the meals I’m going to make for the week, and a calendar for work. All of these calendars are tied to one account, yet remain separate calendars.
2. Focused Planning
What I really like about setting up multiple calendars is that I can hide the other calendars and just focus on the one I’m concerned with at the time. When I want to see what post I’m going to be writing for the next week I look at my editorial calendar, when I want to see what appointments and meetings I have for myself today I can hide the rest of the calendars and just view my appointments.
3. Color Coding
Since all of these calendars are separate they are automatically color coded for you! You can pick different colors for each calendar, or just keep them the colors that end up automatically assigned to the calendar. You can easily see who has to be where at a glance!
4. Access From Anywhere
Most smartphones will allow you to sync your calendar with your Google calendar. You can set which of your Google calendars will be your default for new appointments. You can also pick which calendars you want to view at any given time. Typically on my phone I hide all of the family routine calendars. I can enter an appointment on my phone, and it will instantly be visible on the web.
5. Family Syncing
My husband has his own Google account, but he has used the sharing feature to share the calendar with my Google account where I have access to write to his calendar as well. If we had older kids with smartphones as well, they could also have their own Google accounts and share their calendars. When you give someone write access to your calendar it will automatically be tied to your Google account. This means when I add my Google account to my phone, my husband’s calendar already comes through on its own. Since the calendars are web based, when I schedule a doctor’s appointment for my husband, I can enter it on his calendar on my phone, and his phone will automatically show the appointment!
Best of all Google calendar is absolutely free! You just need a Google account. If you already use blogger or gmail you already have one! Just go to calendar.google.com to get your calendars all set up.
If you already use Google calendar, which feature do you love the most?
Sarah Kimmel, author of OrganizedMom.net and Tech4Moms.com
Marcia Francois, Organising Queen says
Laura, I just stopped by to tell you I listened to your interview with Jackie yesterday and it was fabulous. You shared such great things; the stuff I particularly enjoyed was all on focus 🙂
Rhonda says
I love Google calendar for all the reasons you listed. I maintain color coded calendars for each family member and for other items like household maintenance/management items, menus, even repeating holidays and special occasions have their own calendar/color. Each month, I print a copy and put it on our fridge for quick reference, but my husband and I both use the “share” feature and sync to our phones.
Living the Balanced Life says
I absolutely love Google calendar as well! I love the fact that I can have mulitple calendars and use them to keep my life organized, but segmented. I use it for personal things, but then I also use as a type of editorail calendar for when I am posting, when I have guest posts due and when the guest posts will publish. It helps me to see and stagger my posts and work accordingly.
My kids are grown now, but I did use it the last few years they were home to keep up with schedules!
Great post!
Bernice
Unleash your inner two year old
Marci@OvercomingBusy says
LOVE google calendar! I use it for blogging, for the family calendar, for projects… The color coding makes it great and I love that I can access it anywhere! What a great tool!
Laura says
I LOVE Google calendars! My husband and I share calendars and it makes life so much easier. I can even see his work calendar. He has it set to private, but I still see when he is “busy” so if I need to call him I can wait until he is out of an appointment. It is also great when I need to schedule a Dr. appointment for our son or some other appointment I want him to be at. It saves me the step of having to call and see when he is busy. I also use the task list quite a bit for my Etsy shop. I enter in the sale information, who it is for and when I want to have it finished by. Since different projects have different project lengths it lets me see not only what is due, but the order I need to finish things in and what projects I have coming up so I can work ahead. I love to have all that information right at the tips of my fingers on my Droid phone. So much to love!
Adam Faughn says
I am a preacher and use Google Calendar for everything. The reason I like it the best is the color-coding. NOW they have even added color coding for specific EVENTS, not just for certain calendars, in case you want to particularly highlight something special.
I have Google email me a set amount of time before something (usually 2-3 days before a speaking engagement; 2-3 hours before something less time consuming) as a way of keeping it all straight.
Also, on my iPhone, I use an app called “GooCal” that syncs everthing from the calendars, including the colors, to my phone. It’s a free app.
Agatha Tefora says
I love Google calendar. It keeps my life organized. I use it for work, personal and some other stuff with other people. My boss shares her calendar with me so I don’t get lost in her schedule. It has been my guide in scheduling meetings with her clients.
Ashley @ DesignBuildLove.co says
OMG!!!!!!!!! I’m soooooo glad that someone else is as google calendar obsessed as my husband and I are! Google calendar and having access to each other’s calendars makes life five million times easier! We can plan, schedule, and adjust as needed and always know when we have conflicts! Will totally be using this too when we have kids! And reminders… don’t even get me started! If it’s not on the calendar… it ain’t happenin’! YUP… and syncing to my phone is a MUST!
Jennifer says
I love Google Calendar and have been using it for at least 2 years. I have family calendar (also my calendar), 1 for my husband, 1 for each kid and 1 for the school calendar. I like that I can sort by only 1 calendar if I need to find something on a crowed calendar.
I even set my parents up w/ 1, since they live in another state, they can keep track of what we are up too as well as when the kids are out of school and it would be a good time to visit.
My local in-laws can check the calendar to see when the kids have something coming up they wan to attend, a sporting event or a performance.
I print a weekly-view for the fridge each week. I like how it shows if events are morning or evening. Now I need a smart phone so I can access it anywhere. Now I have to up date my to-go calendar monthly.
Sara says
I’ve never used google calendar. I just had a play with it after reading this and found it updates the calendar on my phone automatically, I had no idea!
Thanks so much 🙂
Sara
Sallie @ Texas Cottage says
I’ve never used Google calendar. I’m definitely going to give it a try. Now that I’m blogging I need to keep a better schedule. Thanks for sharing.
Gin says
Yes Yes YES!!! LOVE Google calendar, for all the reasons mentioned. I especially like the colour coding (we have one for each family member, and one for the whole family) and that I can access it on my Android phone and it automatically syncs. I love that if my husband has an appointment for work, he can enter it at work then I can instantly see it on my phone. I also love that if I make an appointment, I enter it directly using my phone and I don’t have to remember to write it on the family calendar. Google calendar has changed our lives – the old paper calendar now hangs so we can look at the pretty pictures!
SharonMarie says
Yes, you’re right I need to do this. I am a scheduler, love to be organized, but just have not moved to technology in this area. I am definitely going to give it a try. I will I will! Thanks for the info.
Enjoy Birth says
I love it too! I use CalenGoo on my iphone. I know I can do it free also, but I find the calengoo app very helpful. Color coding is the best!
danette halloran says
Love this post. I have been thinking to do this for a long time. You have motivated me to get going! Thank you!!!
Sharon Thoms says
I think the Google Cal app is the best for all the reasons you have mentioned here in your clear and concise way. I must say though that i find the best part is, is that it auto syncs with my iphone and even another cal app that i have on my iphone and so it dosn’t matter where i record my information at the time, i can be sure all my cals are up to date, allowing for no tragic calander recording mistakes. By default they have all been set to update one another as well. How awesome
Online Associate's Degree says
I must thank you for the efforts you have put in penning
this website. I’m hoping to see the same high-grade blog posts from you later on as well. In fact, your creative writing abilities has motivated me to get my own, personal blog now 😉
Brittney says
Do you mind if I quote a few of your articles as long
as I provide credit and sources back to your blog: http://orgjunkie.
com/2011/06/google-calendar-keeps-everyone-in-sync.html.
I’m going to aslo make sure to give you the appropriate anchor-text link using your website title: Google Calendar Keeps Everyone In Sync!. Please be sure to let me know if this is acceptable with you. Thank you
Jenn says
How do you get your hubby’s calendar to show up on your phone? I am trying to do this with a co-worker and we haven’t been able to figure this out! I have shared the calendar with her and she can see it on her laptop when she goes to Google calendar but she can’t get it on her phone…
Laura says
I’m sorry Jenn I don’t know the answer but you might want to try contacting Sarah directly at her website listed above and maybe she could help you.