Making the Most of Your Digital Calendar

While there is certainly overlap between our work, school, and personal lives, it can be helpful to keep them separated as well. To do that, consider setting up separate calendars for each unique role in your life. The two most obvious are personal and work. You and your students might also want a separate one for school or extracurriculars.

If you can use the same tool for all of your calendars, that can be a real benefit. Not only will it mean that you only have to learn one program, but you’ll most likely be able to link your calendars together and see them all in one place.

Be sure to set up access wherever you connect to the internet. On a computer, it’s helpful to add a calendar shortcut for quick and convenient access. For instance, in the Google Chrome browser, you can either pin the tab at the top by right-clicking on it and choosing the pin option, or you can save a favorites link to your calendar on the bookmarks bar. On your phone, you may want to put the calendar app icon on the first screen of application shortcuts for quick and easy access.

If you have a busy calendar, it can look visually overwhelming. One way to make it more accessible is to color-code the events. For instance, you might put meetings in one color, medical appointments in a different one, and community events in yet another color.

If you have meetings or commitments that occur at the same time, on the same day, and on a consistent basis, you can save a lot of time by setting up recurring events. You will typically see this option when you create an event. If you need to cancel or reschedule a recurring event, you can easily do that, but the recurring option saves a lot of time in the long run because you won’t need to manually create a new event separately for every week.

Having a calendar reminder of an event is a great first step, but oftentimes, it just gets you in the right door at the right time. To make sure that you also have what you need when you arrive, consider including as many relevant links, details, and resources within the calendar event as possible.

This might include pasting in a message from an email that includes an address or agenda. It might also mean attaching relevant documents and inserting links. It can save a lot of time if you have everything you need in the details of the calendar event, rather than needing to check the calendar and then also dig through your online storage or email to find the related resources.

Attaching meeting notes to your calendar event can happen before you meet, as you meet, or as soon as the meeting concludes. Whenever you do it, it can save a lot of time and frustration later if your notes are included within the calendar event because they will be so much easier to find and review. Some calendar tools include the option of adding a notes document. Other times, adding a link to a shared document will do the trick, and of course, shared documents are critical to the collaborative process.

The more people who you want to invite to an event, the more complicated that scheduling becomes. If you share calendar access with the other people being invited, you can usually use a “find a time” feature to see common availability across calendars. Many times, you’ll see color-coded calendars that show you where everyone has availability, which can really help speed up the scheduling process. If you don’t have access to the schedules of the other potential attendees, you can use a tool like Doodle to have people check off the times when they are available. This is an extra step, but it’s helpful if you don’t have shared calendar spaces.

Sometimes, you might shy away from wanting other people to see that you have availability at a certain time, as that dedicated quiet time may be just what you need to put your head down and get some work done. To do this, book a calendar event for yourself. That way, you’ll be marked as busy when others are looking for a meeting time.

Productivity apps are increasingly communicating with one another, and that’s growing even more common with the increase of AI functionality. It’s very common for email to link to your calendar, for example. If you book a hotel room or flight and have your confirmation email sent to your Gmail account, Google will usually put that booking on your Google calendar automatically. This can save you lots of clicks and time. Similarly, AI assistants now let you ask questions about content that spans across multiple productivity tools, including your calendar, email, and online documents. Explore what functionality you have available and consider how it can save you time.

If you have a role that requires others to book time with you, utilize appointment slots to allow those individuals to self-schedule meetings during your available times, reducing back-and-forth communications. Many calendar platforms now have this functionality. You set the available times, share a link to the calendar , and others can book a time.

On a computer, this might mean setting up pop-up notifications at a certain time interval before your meeting starts. The little ding and pop-up notification 15 minutes before a meeting is set to begin can help you not only remember that the event is coming up soon but also allow you to mentally shift and prepare for the event. Similarly, if you rely more on your phone, you can set up a notification with a certain ringtone to alert you when a particular event is upcoming.