5 Killer Tricks to Get More out of Google Calendar

There are many reasons to love Google Calendar: after all, you can sync it with iCal and your Blackberry, keeping you hyper-organized wherever life takes you.

Even if you have been using Google Cal for a while, there are always some tricks you may not be aware of yet. Take your calendar’s functionality to the next level with these tips.

1. Track Your Progress

There is a greasemonkey script that shows you where you are on your calendar by adding a moving red line to your calendar view. This red line can be both good and bad: you instantly see if you are on track, and which meetings are coming up without checking the time. But it can also be a source of stress if you are falling behind, while the red line keeps moving down your day.

2. Enlarge Your Calendar View

You can get a bigger view of your calendar by cutting out the extraneous bits, such as the list of calendars, the mini calendar, and the search box. To do this, use the Firefox Full Cal extension. With this you can use a keyboard short cut (the default is + + C) to go to Google Calendar and toggle between full view and regular view.

3. Google Calendar’s Quick Add Function

On the top left of your screen, you will see “Quick Add” underneath “Create Event”.
Click on it, and a small box will pop up in which you can type your event. Using this function you don’t have to go through the elaborate ‘Create Event’ function to add an appointment. Just type in what you would logically say to schedule it. For example, if you want to record a meeting tomorrow at 1pm, you type “Read Google Tutor tomorrow at 1pm.” Your event is automatically recorded for the next day at 1pm, and will read “Read Google Tutor.”

Google made this really neat video about the quick add feature:

4. Google Cal as your personal secretary

Who needs a secretary with Google Cal! You can automatically add events to your calendar, even if you don’t have a smart phone. You can just SMS Google Cal and your appointment will be added to your calendar. Easy as pie!

Convenience does require some set-up though.

On a similar note, Google Cal can also add your Facebook events in bulk, instead of you having to create each one as a separate event manually. To add a number of Facebook events at once, go to your Facebook page and browse to “Me Events”.

• Click on the Facebook Export button.

• Save the file in an easy to find place on your hard drive

• Now go to your Google Cal and click on “Settings.”

• Click on the “Import Calendar” tab.

• Point it to the file you downloaded and click OK.

5. Schedule Resources with Google Cal

If you are sharing anything with anyone, you can schedule it with Google Cal. For example: if you share a car or carpool, you can set up a schedule for this particular “resource,” which all involved parties can easily access and schedule. Let’s take the carpooling example: if you share rides with just one person you may have an easy schedule worked out. However, throw a third individual in the mix and things tend to get complicated.

Here are the steps to set this up:
1. You need to set up a new calendar and make sure it is set to “auto-accept invitations.”
2. Create a calendar only to be used for your resource, in this case your carpooling group.
3. Once created, select calendar settings.
4. Select the calendar details tab.
5. Enable “auto-accept invitations” and click save.
6. Now share your calendar.

Everyone you share this calendar with should be able to add, edit, and remove events from it. This helps you stay up to date on when whatever your sharing is available for use, without actually having to call people. Although I’d never recommend against some personal contact, it saves you time by avoiding having to leave messages, call back, etc.

Google Tutor has previously covered a few additional Google Calendar tricks.

What’s your favorite Google Calendar trick? Which one do you feel really helps you be more productive?