5 Google Calendar Productivity Tips

We use Gmail for our personal email, and for professional accounts hooked up via Google Apps for Business. Google Calendar is just as useful and like other Google products, updated and enhanced regularly.

Here are a few tips to help you organize your daily Google Calendar for a more streamlined and productive experience.

1. Keyboard shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts can significantly speed up your navigation. Quickly switch between monthly, weekly, or daily calendar views by hitting the corresponding M, W or W keys. Click C to create an event and S to manage your settings. Google provides a full list of Calendar keyboard shortcuts.

2. Quickly add an event

Click on the arrow in the “Create” button on the top left corner of the Calendar screen to Quick Add an event. You can also use keyboard shortcut, Q. Enter the event, participants and time. For instance, if you type in “Conference call with Larry and Mike on 5/8 3pm”, it will be assigned to the correct location in the calendar. Cool stuff.

3. Schedule events across time zones

Many of us work with office mates and clients in different time zones. You can view multiple time zones right in Google Calendar. To enable this feature, go to settings by hitting keyboard shortcut S, and under “Your current time zones”, click on “Show an additional time zone”. Select the alternate time zone from the drop-down menu. There’s an option in the Label field to assign the additional time zone a name.

4. Get a daily agenda via email

If email is the first thing you check each day, this is a useful feature. Go to your settings by hitting keyboard shortcut S, and under the Calendars tab, click on “Notifications”. Next, click on the “Daily agenda” option. Now when you hit the snooze in bed and check your email, you’ll find a list of scheduled events for the day before hitting the shower.

5. Add national holidays

Avoid scheduling events on holidays or help plan your next long weekend getaway by enabling Google Holiday Calendar. Go to Settings (by now, you probably know that the keyboard shortcut is S), and click on “Browse interesting calendars” under the “Calendars” tab. Holiday calendars are organized by country in the first column. The really interesting column is the list of sport calendars where you can view the schedule of your favorite team in Google Calendar.

There are just a few tips that make this great free application even more useful.

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