How to Use Google Calendar to Enhance Your Productivity - Lisa Laporte

For any busy professional, Google Calendar has a wide array of features that can help you become more organized. There are so many great features that it can be easy to miss a few that’ll make your day-to-day tasks easier.

Different calendars

Instead of worrying about having different calendars and schedules, you can easily sync up your email accounts to Google Calendar and switch between these calendars with ease. You can keep your personal calendar, your business calendar, and any other schedule in the same place and view them all at once. You can also only view select calendars at a time, if you’re trying to plan your work week and don’t want to be distracted by the other items on different calendars.

Scheduling group meetings

Another key feature that Google Calendar offers to users is scheduling group meetings. A common problem that occurs when trying to schedule a meeting with a group is finding an available slot time. Thankfully, Google Calendar has tackled this issue. When setting up a group meeting, Google Calendar has a feature called “Suggested times” or “Find a time.” Select either of these features and the calendar will appear with a dropdown window. The dropdown menu provides a list of times with every guest including yourself that are available with no conflicts.

Visibility settings

Many companies use Google Calendars. While the calendar is great to use as your personal calendar, Google Calendar has implemented the ability to select the visibility on all your calendars and events. At work, you can select which events on your schedule are public or private; this feature is incredibly beneficial when you have a sensitive meeting or call that you don’t want others to know about. Google Calendar has created a feature called “Private.” When you set your event to “Private,” nobody will have access to view your schedule. The viewer will only see the word “Busy” from their side.

Select working hours

The calendar’s other feature is the ability to enable working hours. This feature is great for companies that have swing shifts. If you don’t work a 9–5 job and need to make your hours known to your colleagues, then Google Calendar has addressed this issue. There’s a setting called “Working Hours.” In this setting you have the ability to specify what part of the day your shift begins and ends.