View only specific calendar dates
Do you want to look like an expert and save time with all of your meetings, appointments, and reminders? Well, in this video, I'm sharing with you seven tips and tricks that I think every Google Calendar user should know.
So let's dive in. Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And the first tip has to do with navigating and viewing only the days that you want.
Now you're probably already familiar with the dropdown menu in the top right hand corner of the screen. We can alternate from a day view to a week view,
or a month view, whatever you would like. But if you would just like to see a specific set or a specific group of days? Well, a little known tip is to use the mini calendar here
on the left hand side. And if I just want to see Wednesday through Friday, I can click and drag across those dates, and now I'm just seeing Wednesday through Friday.
What if I just want to see Tuesday and Wednesday of next week? Just those two days, drag across them, and now I'm just seeing those two days. How about the last two weeks? Well, just drag over top of them and now I've got that view in front of me here,
Not the full month view, just those specific two weeks. So if you're just after a few set of days, be sure to make use of this mini calender under view here by just clicking and dragging your mouse.
Create & dock new calendar events
Now, the next tip on our list has to do with creating new events while still seeing information that is relevant to you. Now, for most of us, when we're using Google Calendar on our desktop, we're going to click on the area where we'd like to add that new event and I'm just going to give it the title of New Event.
Now immediately, it is blocking some of my calendar.
Now I can click and drag this if I want to move this around on the screen, if I want to reference perhaps other information or other events, but another thing you can do is either drag it all the way over to the left hand side, you can see that it gives us a bit of a highlighted area in order for us to do so,
or you can click this little dock to sidebar icon in the top left hand corner. And what that is going to do is to dock that new event here on the left hand side while you can see your entire calendar here on the right, and yes, we can continue to navigate to other weeks or other days.
We can even switch to a day view if we want to, but still have that new event listed here. Now you will also notice in this dock view that it will provide you with a bit of a flashing shadow here on your event calendar.
So as you're adding details here, you can see exactly where this event will appear once you have saved it.
Now you can always click this icon again to undock that event if you want to go back to that traditional view but either you can click this icon here or click and drag it all the way over to the left hand side, if you want to dock this event, if you want to go and use and see other things in your calendar while you're creating such an event.
Adding notes to meetings with Meetric
Now the next tip on our list is all about adding notes to a particular meeting. Whether you're wanting to do that in advance or maybe you want to go back and review the notes for a particular meeting.
And for this purpose, we're going to be using an extension called Meetric. With the Meetric extension installed within your Google Calendar account, when you select any of your events, you will now see a take notes button available to you as well. By selecting this, we get a small slide out which allows us to add as many detailed notes here on the right hand side.
And you can add anything, including links, bullet points, really anything that's going to help you prepare or perhaps if you're taking notes during the meeting. And the great thing is that all of the notes that you record here will stay synced to this particular event.
So whether you want to share something in advance or if you want to review something that has happened in the past, you can do so right here with the Meetric tool. Best of all, you can also do it in full screen. So for example, later today, I've got my team standup meeting and maybe I want to add some more details to this list
or maybe we're going to ignore a particular question for this particular meeting. I can view and access all of my events because remember it's synced directly to my account. Let's go down to this coaching session, for example, and I can review the things that I want to discuss with this client. I can even assign myself specific tasks
and give them a reminder or a due date so I can use it for more than just notes,
I can use it for a to-do list and to remind myself of certain tasks. And when the meeting is over, I can always choose to share those notes either via a link or send them directly via email. Now, if you'd like to start using Meetric with your Google Calendar, you can go to Meetric.app or see the link in the description below.
Google Calendar keyboard shortcuts
Next up on our list, let's see how we can save time by using the variety of shortcuts
right here within Calendar. Now, I could tell you about some of my favorite shortcuts
but if you want to see the full list yourself, all you need to do is select the question mark key on your keyboard. And that will bring up the full list of all of the great keyboard shortcuts right here within Google Calendar.
Now note, you may have to go into your settings menu and then come down to keyboard shortcuts and make sure that this is enabled. If this check mark is not checked, you will not be able to see this quick reference list.
So be sure to check this first and then you can choose to use the question mark key. Now, one of my most used shortcut keys is the letter G, as in go to date. By selecting G on your keyboard, you're presented with a small dialogue here
where you can type in basically anything that you want. So if someone's asking me, what am I doing in November, I can type in November and immediately jump to November of this year.
If I want to go back to today, I can simply say today and it's going to bring me right back. And what about, I don't know, Christmas 2024? Well, let's go and find out, no, it looks like I'm pretty free at the moment.
So the next time you want to jump back and forth quickly and easily, simply select G on your keyboard and jump to the specific date that you want.
View the Google Contacts sidebar
Now, if you're dealing with a lot of meetings, that also means that you're dealing
with an awful lot of people, and sometimes we can forget in terms of who we are meeting with and why, and what exactly is the relationship with that individual?
Well, instead of having to jump back and forth between your email account or your contacts tab, we can actually access that information right here from within Google Calendar and in order to so, we're going to use the sidebar feature here on the right hand side.
You'll notice that there's a Google contacts icon in which we can open up. Now, if you don't see this sidebar come all the way down to the bottom right, and make sure that you've expanded this little arrow, that's going to allow you to see this sidebar on the right hand side of the screen.
So for example, maybe I am looking at this meeting with Scott and I'm not exactly sure who this Simple Scott is and what is the relationship. Yes, I'll get some details by hovering over here but if I click on the context on the right hand side and then click that meeting I will also see the full list of all of the attendees.
And here I can go one step further, I can click on the individual itself, I can see their full list of information but I can also see some of the recent interactions.
So here are some of the other meetings that are coming up with this person, here is the last email that we've had and I can click on that and go directly to the email.
I can even read some of the notes down below and yeah, maybe I want to stay away from this guy at the next cocktail party. And when you're done accessing
or reviewing all of the information here, all you need to do is select the contacts icon again which will close that sidebar. So a quick and easy way to find out more information about those whom your meeting with.
Share Google Calendar with others
Next, let's take a look at how we can share our Google Calendar with others.
Now, why would you want to do that? Well, of course, you may want to share your calendar with your coworkers or maybe with just someone that you're working with for a period of time.
Now, the good news is that you don't have to share all of your details. Google Calendar gives us a lot of options.
So whether you want to share just a read only version, or maybe you just want to show when you're busy or perhaps you're working with an assistant and you want to give them full control, Google Calendar gives us a lot of flexibility.
The first thing that you're going to want to do
is pick the specific calendar which you want to share because maybe you don't want to share everything here but just your main booking calendar, for example. So I'm going to click on the More button and then select Settings and sharing.
We can still get to this from the main icon from the home page, but this is going to bring us directly to that particular calendar. Then we want to go and select Share with specific people. And here you can see we can add as many additional people as we want.
So yes, I am the owner, but I'm going to say add someone, and I'm going to add that Simple Scott, once again, I can add multiple people here if I want but where we want to pay careful attention to is the permissions dropdown.
So here we've got a few different things to consider. The first choice is to see only free or busy information. So they're not going to see the name of the event. They're not going to see any of the guests, they're just going to see when things are booked on your calendar.
The second option is to see all event detail. So yes, they are going to see absolutely everything as a part of that event but they won't be able to edit anything. Next, we have make changes to events, which yes, they're going to see it, and they're going to be able to make changes to those events.
And lastly, we're basically giving them full control, by selecting this option, they will also be able to share your calendar with others. So make sure that you're making the best choice for yourself.
We can select that here and then select Send which is going to send them an invitation so that they can have access to your calendar.
Change calendar email notifications
Now, one of the biggest pet peeves for many calendar users are the number of notifications and email alerts that you receive for all of your calendar events,
whether you're invited to something new, someone changes their response, or gives you an accepted confirmation, sometimes we don't necessarily need all of this email data and it can really contribute to email overload.
So in order to make these changes for a specific calendar, once again, we want to select on the More buttons, then select Settings and sharing. And this time we're going to come down to Other notifications.
Now here, you can see there are five different events or five different triggers, which will send an email. But the good news is that you don't have to receive all of these events. So for example, event responses is one of my pet peeves. I can always go back into my calendar and see who has accepted or who has declined.
I don't necessarily want to receive an email response when someone has committed to that meeting. So I can come over here and select none as an alternative. And we've got a few other options here as well including new events, changed events, or canceled events.]
So if you want to customize how many emails and for what purposes you are getting in your inbox, be sure to come to the Other notifications area and choose what's best for you. Now I'd love to hear from you next.
What was your favorite tip from today's video or what other problem are you facing in Google Calendar and you can't quite seem to figure it out? Be sure to let me know in the comments down below.
And if you enjoyed this video, you'll love my other content right here on the Simpletivity channel.
Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.
