Set up Your Life: Plan Your Week With Google Calendar

Most individuals may stand to be extra organized, particularly these of us working from dwelling and/or working a enterprise. Fortunately, all of us have entry to Google Calendar. It’s free, can sync with different calendars and productiveness apps like Trello or Notion, and is comparatively straightforward to make use of. Transcend handwritten to-do lists; this is use Google Calendar to plan your week.

Set up Your Week

Many individuals use calendar apps to maintain monitor of appointments or Zoom calls. That’s advantageous, however there’s rather more you are able to do. Utilizing Google’s Calendar app as a planner, you may:

• Make digital to-do lists
• Create occasions and duties
• Coloration-code objects
• Arrange reminders

You can too add extensions to increase its performance. Some are aesthetic, like those that allow you to set a background picture(Opens in a brand new window) or choose colours past the usual ones Google offers for colour coding. Others can combine with video-conferencing apps like Be a part of.me(Opens in a brand new window) and BlueJeans(Opens in a brand new window).

Make Process Lists, Calendars, and Classes

Google Duties

Earlier than creating your schedule, ask your self what you normally do. It sounds easy, however writing down common duties and necessary objects, comparable to conferences, will assist you get a greater sense of handle your time. You can begin by creating a listing of to-dos.

Katrina Oko-Odoi, Content material Advertising Supervisor for CRM agency Copper, recommends(Opens in a brand new window) that folks “assume in each the lengthy and quick time period. Document tasks or duties that you’re going to want to finish, even in case you need not get them carried out right now and even this week. For bigger tasks, attempt to break them down into actionable steps. It will make it simpler to plot time in your calendar.”

You may make your listing utilizing different productiveness apps linked to Google Calendar, or simply use Google Duties(Opens in a brand new window) to maintain it easy. Duties is accessible from any Google Workspace app, comparable to Drive, Calendar, or Hold. Click on the blue checkmark icon on the right-hand menu bar to entry it.

Use Duties to jot down a listing of the issues you recognize you’ll must do all through the week in no specific order. When you’re carried out, click on and drag them as new duties to particular days in your calendar. For instance, if you recognize you wish to block time for train throughout the week, you may create a job known as “train,” then drag it to the specified day and time.

Group duties by listing so it’s simpler to maintain monitor of them. You possibly can, for instance, make a listing known as “chores” the place you retain common family to-dos, or “life admin” for issues like checking e mail and scheduling appointments. If you’d like the liberty so as to add and arrange duties from anyplace in your browser, try extensions just like the Tasksboard app for Chrome(Opens in a brand new window).

Google Calendar additionally lets you create separate calendars for various elements of your life. You’ll be able to have a calendar for work and one for private occasions, populated with duties related to every class. If you happen to’re utilizing your calendar primarily for work, strive making a calendar for necessary conferences, one for undertaking deadlines, and one other for work occasions to maintain your work life extra organized. Particular calendars might be toggled on and off from the left-hand sidebar.

To make a brand new calendar, click on the plus (+) icon subsequent to the Different Calendar part within the lower-left nook, then select Create new calendar. Add a reputation for the calendar, write an outline, and assign an proprietor (if a number of persons are utilizing the identical Google account).

Add to Your Calendar

Including new duties, occasions, or reminders to your calendar is simple. Click on and drag on the precise day you’d like so as to add one thing and a brand new field will pop up the place you may fill within the specifics. Or, simply click on the Create button subsequent to the large plus signal within the upper-left nook.

If you wish to set a job to repeat, click on the time for that job the place it says Doesn’t repeat. A drop-down menu will open with a spread of choices you may select to repeat the duty. Relying on the to-do merchandise, you may set it to repeat every day, weekly, month-to-month, or on a particular day of the week. You possibly can set a time to your train job, and it could present up each week going ahead.

Coloration-coding your schedule might sound pointless, but it surely helps hold issues straight so it doesn’t get overwhelming. Once you create a brand new job or occasion, you’ll see a round colour icon that defaults to blue. Click on it to vary the colour that exhibits up in your calendar.

Don’t just like the choices you see? You probably have the extension for extra colours(Opens in a brand new window) put in, click on the plus icon within the colour field and insert a hex worth from Google’s colour picker(Opens in a brand new window).

Greatest Practices for Weekly Planning

When filling in your schedule, Oko-Odoi recommends including “non-negotiables” first. These are appointments, conferences, and different occasions that must happen on a particular time and day. You’ll be able to then fill in different necessary factors out of your to-do listing, pulling them from Google Duties or another linked app or extension.

Begin with crucial objects, blocking sufficient time so that you don’t rush or get overwhelmed with too many duties in at some point. If you happen to’re engaged on one thing significantly dense, attempt to break it up into time blocks over a number of days. Experiment with each kinds of time blocking to get a really feel for what you want, then run with it.

Productiveness YouTuber Jules Acree, for instance, has sure days marked off as “potato days” on her calendar whereas others are labeled “creation days.” On “potato days,” Acree handles modifying duties and different to-dos that don’t require being on digicam or trying fancy. Creation days are for filming movies and/or taking conferences.

To create labels like she has for every day, merely add an occasion that lasts the whole day to your calendar and label it as such. Acree additionally colour codes deadlines in vibrant yellow in order that they stand out—which is especially helpful for freelancers assigning their very own work schedule. If you wish to see her break down her organizational philosophy additional, try the video above.

Ensure you construct in time for breaks. Working for 5 hours straight may look advantageous on paper, however you’ll be drained on the finish of it in case you do not take a second to step again every now and then. The reminders operate is useful right here—in case you’re the form of one that will get sucked into your work, strive scheduling stretch break reminders all through your work day.

Schedule blocks of time for calls, together with a couple of minutes to prep beforehand. That manner you may decompress between duties and absolutely focus when it’s time to leap on that Zoom name. You’ll be able to name these blocks one thing like “prep time” and colour code them in a different way than the remainder.

Lastly, generally issues come up out of nowhere. When that occurs, you want time to cope with it. Attempt to put aside time simply in case you get an sudden name or have to leap to an unplanned job. Try this, and also you’ll nonetheless have the time and area to get your principal to-dos within the can.

Strive It for Your self

The extra you employ Google Calendar, the simpler it turns into to arrange your week. Studying the ins and outs, comparable to sizzling key shortcuts(Opens in a brand new window), will assist make planning your days intuitive and easy. To recap, the fundamentals of planning your week with Google Calendar are:

• Record out your duties and determine which of them are recurring
• Categorize these duties
• Create calendars for these classes
• Fill in these calendars together with your duties
• Coloration code objects by class

If you happen to aren’t positive this method is for you, strive it for per week to seek out out. Pull up Google Calendar, change to week view, and skip to the next week. You might also want some further assist eliminating distractions, avoiding procrastination, and stopping fatigue to maintain up productiveness.

Fill in your deliberate weekly schedule and see how straightforward it’s to stay to your plan. For extra, try these Calendar ideas and Google’s personal information(Opens in a brand new window).