Day 51- Google Organization- GCal

Day 51- Google Orgaznization-GCal

This is part of a multipart series on organizing your life using Google. Previous entries include GMail, Google Reader and iGoogle.

A few weeks ago, I realized that I have been keeping 5 calendars. Five! Five separate calendars! My hand held, my outlook, my gCal, iCal and TheDailyPlate. My handheld comes with me everywhere. Outlook is just for work. TheDailyPlate is for my food. gCal is for home and iCal is on my laptop. Needless to say, all these calendars for different spheres of my life were causing me to double or even triple book myself.

Streamlining by Syncing-
I realized I needed to streamline. So, i synced my iCal and outlook with my GCal. Neither of which are very difficult to do. I also keep gCal open in my firefox tabs at all times. So, when some one at work or home schedules an appointment with me, it syncs with the other calendars. So, while I am still keeping 5 different calendars for 5 different occasions, they are all keeping up with each other.

Seperating Business and Pleasure-
on GCal, since I am keeping 5 different calendars in one place, I make sure they are different calendars. Both GCal and iCal give me the option of keeping mulitiple calendars seperate. They are all color coded by type. Keeping them seperate lets me know if the event approaching is preparing for a phone call or a dinner date with the housemates or something I have to do while I am running errands.

To Do Lists-
In theory, GCal can send me to do lists via my phone. But my phone is old and Jankey. But thanks to syncronized calendars, I can program my iPod to remind me of things I need to do. And with GCal and gMail, I can have my to do lists emailed to me.

Holidays, movie release dates, and election dates-
As a community organizer, it is important for me to keep on top of dates I can link into. Holidays, election dates and local events are a great way to stay in the know. Public Calendars are a great way to have other people do the grunt work for you. FOR even has one on national anti-war protests.

Meetings and Appointments-
I make a lot of meetings with people. Whether it with friends, family, workmates or housemates, gCal lets me invite people to meet through gMail. So my address book and calendar are also all synced up.

Stop Design has some other ways to make your gCal work for you.

Next time, I plan on reviewing the beta for Firefox 3. If you have not made the switch from Safari or IE to Firefox, I highly recomend it. Just click on the shiny button on the right hand side and you will wonder why it has taken so long for you to switch.