Using Google Calendar to stay organised

For the more observant ones, or for the ones that know us and our business, no I’ve not gone mad and turned my back on Microsoft…

We of course work every single day with Office 365, and everything that comes with that platform, from email and calendars to Sharepoint.

This article is based on personal computer systems and business, with Google offering some great services for the individual, such as Google Mail and Google Calendar.

Why use Google Calendar to manage your life, work and family activities?

First of all, it’s free. Let’s not get into the debate about how Google uses your data in exchange for the service being free, that’s something for another day. So, it’s free for a Google Account, giving you a personal email address and calendar.

I like Google Calendar, because you can easily use it from anywhere, such as via a web browser on any computer and using Google Apps on your phone. But, this isn’t the killer reason to use Google Calendar, as you can access most calendars in the same way.

What I like is the ease with which you can have multiple calendars, but have them easily viewed and managed in one place, along with the notifications you can customise.

For example, I have a personal calendar, a work calendar and a family calendar. Using the separate calendars, you can choose what you want to view at any time, you can set different default alerts on each calendar and you can colour code each one so that when you’re viewing them, it’s easy for your brain to learn the colours of each calendar.

Another example of why having multiple calendars in one place works well is the weekends for example. Don’t want to be reminded about looming work-related appointments? You can just untick your work calendar and then you can’t see it until you select it again.

The custom notifications are great, with pop-up reminders on your computer, and email reminders. Using different calendars, you can set what the default reminder times are set to. For example, with my work calendar I like the reminders quite close to the event, a couple of hours beforehand, whereas, with my reminders, I like the reminder much earlier (as it might be for someone’s birthday for example). With my family calendar, I don’t have reminders at all, as it’s more about planning everything else around this calendar, rather than using it for reminders.

You can take things a step further with the email reminders and have them colour-coded and filtered into a view, which forms a To-Do list in your Google email account, again something I use all the time to ensure I’m not forgetting anything.

The simple interface, the ease of use and the customisation you can do make a Google Calendar the number one recommendation for personal organisation in my book.

Gavin Moorhouse is the owner of Lucid Computer Solutions, an IT Services business covering Worcester and the surrounding areas. He produced this article, having had a Google reminder to do so.