Do you wish that you could customize the way your Google Calendar looks and feels? Well, in today's video, I'm showing you seven tips and tricks so that you can view your schedule the way that you want.
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Different Calendar View Shortcut Keys
Let's get started with tip number one: customizing your Google Calendar views. You may already be familiar with the dropdown menu here, which allows you to switch between different views like day, week, or month.
Here’s a quick tip: instead of using the dropdown, you can use keyboard shortcuts to toggle between these views more efficiently. For example:
- Press D for Day view.
- Press W for Week view.
- Press M for Month view.
These shortcuts let you switch views quickly without navigating through the menu.
Another useful feature is the option to hide weekends. If your calendar primarily focuses on weekdays and you find weekends distracting, you can simply uncheck the “Show weekends” option. This will give you a more streamlined view of your workweek and help you see more of your calendar in the available space.
So, next time you want to customize your calendar view, try using these shortcuts and options to better fit your needs!
Go To Date on Calendar Shortcut Key
Let's move on to another useful shortcut key: G, which stands for Go To. This feature allows you to quickly jump to any specific date in your calendar.
Here’s how it works:
- Press G on your keyboard.
- A small window will appear where you can enter any date you want to navigate to.
- For example, if you want to see your calendar for December 25th, 2021, just type in “12/25/2021” and hit Enter. Your calendar will instantly jump to that date.
This shortcut is particularly handy if you need to check events far in the future or the past without scrolling through months or years. It’s a fast way to get to any date you’re interested in without having to click around.
So next time you need to jump to a specific date, just remember to use G and save yourself some time!
Go To Today on Calendar Shortcut Key
That also brings me to my next shortcut key, which is T as in today, if I hit T on my keyboard, I will automatically go back to today. So whether I'm reviewing something in the past, or whether I'm going fast forward into the future, I can just hit T on my keyboard, and go immediately back to today.
New Calendar Event Dock View
Here's a handy tip for adjusting event times in Google Calendar: Use the dock to sidebar feature to make it easier to set the start and end times for your events.
Here's how it works:
- Create a New Event: Click on the calendar space where you want to create a new event and start entering your details.
- Dock the Event Window: In the top right corner of the event creation window, you'll see an option to dock it to the sidebar. Click this icon.
- Adjust Your Event Time: Once docked, you’ll see a day view on the right side of your screen. You can now:
- Drag the Event: Adjust the start and end times by dragging the event in the day view. Simply click and drag the edges of the event to extend or shorten the duration.
- Move the Event: Drag the entire event up or down the timeline to adjust its position within the day.
This feature helps you visually manage your schedule, making it easier to set accurate times for your events without having to scroll through dropdown menus. It’s especially useful if you want a better view of your day while editing the event details.
Side Panel Map View for Event Locations
Now, the next one on our list is something that is quite new and something that I've started to use a lot more frequently.
And that has to do with incorporating a map view here within Google Calendar.
Now, quite often, I will try to include the address or the actual location of the place that I need to be.
I find this most helpful because I'm traveling with my smartphone, and if you click this on your smartphone, it's automatically gonna open up the Maps App.
But here within the desktop version of Google Calendar, you'll notice on the right-hand side, we actually have a Maps view.
If you open it up, you'll get a miniature Maps view of what's going on here.
So let's say that I'm not sure where this lunch is taking place. If I click on this event and then click on the map, what's going to happen is on the right-hand side, it's gonna bring up that address, and I can say, "Oh, Anton's yeah, I know where that is. I know how much time I need to get myself to get to that location."
Here's another lunch I have set up later in the week. If I click on this, and again, I'm gonna click on the address here, it's immediately gonna bring up this miniature map on the right-hand side.
And if I want to, I can even see the reviews and other pieces of information that's down below as well.
So if you happen to have address or location information within your events, not only is this gonna be helpful to you on your mobile device, but it's gonna be helpful to you here within the desktop view as well.
Adding Time Zone View to the Calendar
Next up, we wanna talk about time zones.
And I know for most of us, we are often working with either clients or colleagues that are in a different time zone than us.
But on the left-hand side, by default, you're only gonna see the one time zone. You're gonna see your local time zone.
Well, let's see if we can change that, or shall I say, enhance that?
Up in Settings, we wanna click the gear icon, then we want to click settings, and on the left-hand side, we wanna click on time zone.
Now, here we have the option to display a secondary time zone. You're gonna have to check this box first, and then down below, you can check or select any other time zone that you like.
So here I am gonna select Eastern Time, but you can also customize the label. So I just gonna say Eastern ET, as an Eastern Time here. Okay, that's gonna be the label that I wanna see on my screen.
So if I go back to my calendar here, now you can see I've got home, which of course is where I am currently, but now I've got Eastern Time here as well.
So no longer do I need to do the math, or if I'm on a phone call and say something like, "Hey Scott, can you meet at 4:00 PM Eastern Time?" I can just look at my calendar and say, "Ah, yeah, 4:00 p.m. Eastern, yeah, looks open, sure, we can definitely set up a meeting at that time."
So this can be really helpful, especially if there's a particular time zone that you're needing to calculate or figure out what their time is as well.
Viewing World Clocks on the Calendar
But let's look at another way in which we can utilize time zones or take advantage of time zones here on Google Calendar.
If we go back to Settings, we're gonna stay here in this time zone area. Actually, we're gonna come down to the world clock, which is just below.
And here we can check this box that says, Show World Clock. Now, of course, you can choose how many of these different times that you would like to display, and you can customize which ones you want to display.
I'm just gonna leave them at the default here for this example, we're gonna show the UK, we're gonna show Alaska and we're gonna show New York.
Now, if we go back, nothing has changed in this area here, we still have Eastern Time displayed, but on the left-hand side, we have a live world clock.
So now if I need to debate, like, "Is it too late to call someone in the UK? 5:56, someone might still be in the office." Yeah, it's alright, "I can give them a phone call there right now."
So you can have a live world clock here on the left-hand side of your screen.
Now I'd love to hear from you next. What are some of your favorite Google Calendar view settings, or what's a question that you have about Google Calendar?
Be sure to let me know in the comments down below.
Thank you so much for watching today's video, don't forget to subscribe right here to the Simpletivity channel, and remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.
