Organizing Absolutely Everything with Google Calendars: Part II – Color and Calendars

Welcome to Part II of You’re So Organized, where I wank on for 2000+ words about how much of my life I run with Google Calendars, and feel the chilling vulnerability of letting everyone see exactly how goofy my brain is. My brain is very goofy.

In Part I, I gave an explanation of the basic tools in G:Cal, including new appointments, repeating appointments, and scheduling reminders in advance.

Now it’s time to talk color and managing separate calendars!

Before I get started with All The Screencaps, I wanted to share some of the recurring appointments that Past Sarah set up that reminded me to do things in the past week.

Wash Rugs (1x month) It’s winter, and we just moved in to our new home in time for SNOW and also MUD (which is a different color here than in Jersey and it’s STILL interesting to me) (see above: Brain, goofy). Once a month I wash the rug inside the front door (gross level: 10+) and the rugs in the hall baths (gross level: 7.5). This may seem bizarre but wow, do they look better, and I don’t have to wonder when I see them when would have been the last time I washed them. Past Sarah made the appointment, and Present Sarah washed the rugs. Present and Future Sarah are inordinately pleased by the clean rugs now.

Bball Today! My 8 year old has after school basketball, so at 7:45am, right after I wake them up, I get a reminder to make sure he has a snack and his sneakers (if he’s wearing boots to school because MUD SNOW). I’m not fully caffeinated at that hour, so 7:45am reminders are very common. Past Sarah set this appointment up and left the full schedule in the description, so when Baba O’Riley said, “When does basketball end?” I knew the answer. He likes facts. I like knowing I don’t remember things involving numbers. We’re both happy.

Cancel your free trial today! Jay also brought this up in the comments last week – and this has saved my bacon many times, including this week. A lot of free trials for software and online services require a credit card number. The trial won’t be billed for 30 days, but will I remember? No, of course not.

So when I sign up for something with a free trial that will auto-bill after the trial ends, I both (a) assume that I will NOT be notified of the upcoming bill, and (b) assume that I will not remember that I signed up in the first place. I add appointments 29 days after the start date of the trial, put the URL to cancel or to log in to my account in the description, and set a reminder – just like Jay – for multiple days in advance that I need to cancel it if I don’t want it.

Tam B. asked how folks who don’t use Google Calendar, or who use iDevices, can sync Google Calendars. First, here are two options for syncing with iDevices. Second, most calendar software offers the basic features I’m using, so though my screen shots are G:Cal, you can do most of this with Outlook or whatever calendar software you prefer.

Syncing to iPhone – Digital Trends

Google Support Tutorial for Calendar Syncing Across Devices

A note about iCal: recent updates seem to have removed some features, and I read a number of threads online of people leaving iCal to adopt other systems as a result. So if you’re using iCal, your mileage may vary depending on recent software updates and I’m sorry about that.

So let’s talk Color and Calendars!

Currently I have four concurrent calendars, each with its own color. I also have a number of imported calendars, which is a separate thing that I’ll explain, do not fear.

Purple: Main calendar (aka “Sarah Wendell”)
Pink: Smart Bitches (the website – this one, right here)
Red: Menstrual Period (“TMI!” “Too late.”)
Green: Menu*

*Menu is going to get its own entry, because that’s a big calendar with a lot of moving parts, so look for that soon.

One of the questions I received last week asked if I keep separate calendars for the kids. I don’t, but they don’t do that much without me yet. Once they do things that I need to be aware of but don’t have to attend myself, then I’ll probably set up a calendar specifically for them.

Keeping separate calendars allows me to isolate different kinds of appointments, especially recurring ones. If I had every appointment in one calendar with no color coding, I’d have a harder time focusing on the different things I do in a day.

Let’s start with the TMI: I track my cycle on its own calendar. I’m including this because I suspect it might help some of you, especially if your cycle isn’t regulated by birth control that makes the incoming joy of monthly estrus easily predictable. I can’t tolerate hormonal birth control, and I have PCOS, so I have to guess. 28 days? Never. 30? Maybe. 34? It’s happened. But this may help you even if you do have a regular-like-clockwork schedule and don’t always remember where you are in that cycle.

Plus, whenever a doctor or nurse has asked me, “When was your last menstrual period?” I stare at them because I have no idea what day or time it is, ever, and there’s no way I know what ovary time it is , either.

So, I have a calendar that I can isolate and look at month-to-month to try to figure it out. It’s red.

First, create a new calendar. Down on the sidebar where the calendars are, there’s a tiny dropdown arrow. Click that, and select “Create a new calendar.”

 

Let’s give it a name!

You can call this calendar whatever you want, obviously.

There are other options below, which I didn’t use for this one, and all have to do with sharing:

I’m going to discuss sharing next week, so don’t fear.  There are a TON of ways to use sharing of calendars to help you manage appointments, different people’s activities, and household events. I don’t know if you need to share this particular calendar with coworkers or if you need to make this one public and searchable, but if that’s helpful, stay tuned and I’ll cover those options.

For the purposes of this example, this new calendar is just for you, and just for tracking your goddess moon cycle. Or moon goddess cycle. Or the bicycle of the moon goddess. Whatever.

Click “Create Calendar,” which is conveniently located at the top AND bottom of that screen, and presto! New calendar!

Look, there it is:

Hold up, though. It’s blue. We need to change that. Click the drop down arrow to the right of the calendar listing, and you get the submenu for that individual calendar: 

Choose custom color? Don’t mind if I do!

Perfect! Now that calendar is red.

Colors are a HUGE help for me in identifying what is crucial, what appointments go with what job, and what’s coming up.

Now, before we set up any appointments, let’s modify the notification settings because by default they’re all turned off.

Go back to that drop down menu and select “Calendar Settings.”

In the Calendar Settings, there are four menus at the top: Calendar Details, Share this Calendar, Edit notifications, and Trash:

Click Edit notifications.

As I mentioned, by default, there are no notifications set for new Events, aka individual appointments, or for All-day events.

If you want notifications, click “Add a notification” to the right of whichever one you want.

Let’s say for this example, we plan to add an All-day event for the day the cycle starts, and we want notifications one day prior:

So, with this change, by default, if we add an All-day event to the calendar, a pop up will appear on our web browser 1 day prior at 9am. You can also change “Pop-up” to “Email,” if that’s more helpful.

Click “Save” at the top or bottom of the Notifications menu, and you’ll return back to the calendar.

Now, on to appointments!

We need to know when it’s periodical time, yes? Time to create an All-day appointment in the future to give Future Us the heads up.

Since this is a monthly-or-so recurring event, select “Month” view at the top right to change the view in the browser window to the whole month.

In the calendar view, click on the date on which you’re adding the new All-day event. We get this little easy-to-use menu:

Well, it’s an event, all right:

 

And if this isn’t an exact science for you either, make a second appointment for your next-best guess:

 

If you need to give yourself a reminder the week before to make sure you’re adequately prepared, you can do that with this calendar, too:

 

When the reawakening of your estrus moonbeam arrives, you can change the appointment or add a new one to reflect the accurate start date, and use that to predict the next month.  Or, if you’re among the most fortunate to know in advance, you can plot out years at a time. I’m deeply envious.

The point here is, changing the color of particular calendars can help a LOT when you have to focus on multiple tasks and schedules at a time. The color helps this set of events stand out, which may help a lot. (And if I can make a recommendation, Always Infinity with FlexFoam are truly incredible and I cannot recommend them enough, thanks to this Tumblr post from Rattlecat.)

Monthly schedules are one example. I also have a calendar for the website, as I mentioned, and yes, it’s pink. I use that to track monthly columns, what content is going up on what date, and the release dates of particular books.

The key is being able to isolate and look at solely that calendar, which you do with this part of the dropdown menu:

It’s enormously helpful to switch to monthly view and select “Display only this Calendar” to see what’s up.

Those who adore different paper planners (hi fives, ladies!) often talk about the monthly view, daily and hourly pages, and sections that highlight different periods of time in one focused place. I love those features, too, especially the monthlong view and the weekly view. You can do the same with the digital calendars using the view menu, and you can color-code your schedules so they’re distinguishable from one another.

If you get used to thinking in a daily, weekly, and monthly or even yearly view, and you make sure everything is on the appropriate calendar, it’s a lot harder for unexpected things to sneak up on you. Switching views on a calendar – or on all of them at once, which can be a colorful explosion of information – is like zooming in and out. You have your close-up view of the day or the next few hours, and you have the 30,000 foot view of the whole month.

Plus, you can use multiple browser tabs for individual calendars. I keep my personal schedule in a one-week view in one tab, and the website schedule for the month on the next tab over. You can choose which calendars are on display by clicking on them in the ‘My Calendars’ area on the left sidebar. 

Ok, again, this is a lot. Next week, I’ll be back to talk about sharing appointments, and sharing whole calendars.

Then I’ll explain the one calendar that has saved me, and this is not an exaggeration, several hours each week, and eliminated one of the red socks that routinely stressed me out and screwed up my day.

If you’ve got questions or suggestions, please share! Getting and staying organized with my time is a process, and I’m constantly refining it.

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