Productivity
Arthur ANDRÉ
Arthur ANDRÉ
4
min read

10 Google Calendar features to be more productive

Are you a Google Calendar pro yet? Check out these 10 tips and features that will help you master your agenda!

We gathered for you the top 10 tips and powerful hidden features you should know if you are using Google Calendar.

1. Work across multiple time zones

Cross-timezone meeting planning can easily become a hassle. Do you sometimes wonder if your teammate that is living on the other side of the Atlantic is already at work or already at home?

No more doubts, with Google Calendar, you can display multiple time zones to see at a glance what time is it in any other timezone.To configure this, go to Google Calendar settings.

In the first tab 'Language and Region', tick the box 'Display secondary time zone' and you will be able to add another timezone that will be displayed on the left column of your calendar.

You can add a secondary timezone on Google Calendar

2. Enable working hours (and working location)

Nothing is more annoying than a meeting too early in the morning, or too late at the end of the day...

To avoid colleagues or external partners to book meetings when you don't want to be available, you can define working hours in your Google Calendar settings. It will display in your calendar that you are not available outside of these time periods.

You can define working hours and specify your location (home or office) to make remote work planning easier.

3. Master custom notifications

Did you ever forget to join a meeting? It happened to any of us. Sometimes, you just need a special reminder to not miss a meeting.

You can configure the default notifications for every meeting, but you can also configure it for every single one. Within an event, you can add custom notifications, either by email or within your browser. You can define a reminder to be triggered any minutes, days or weeks ago.

Configure custom notifications to remind you of a meeting minutes, hours, days or even weeks ago.

4. Colors and headers picture

This one is a nice to know, but Google Calendar will automatically add a cover image to your event for some activity keywords, like "Language Practice", season events related to Xmas, Halloween, NYE, Beer...

Here is the full list of words you can use: https://ourtechroom.com/tech/google-calendar-event-image-list-google-calendar-flairs

Make your calendar looks great with events cover images.

5. Shortcuts: D, W, M, Y, X, A...

Did you know you can switch from one calendar view to another, in just one click?

You can switch to the Day view by pressing D, or to the Week view with W, there is also the Month view with M and the Year view with Y. There is also the 5-days view that you can trigger using the X key.

My favorite is the Schedule view, it's an ordered list of all the meetings, that you can open when pressing the A key.

Use special keys to switch Calendar view

6. Type less, save time

You lost the calendar tab? Don't worry, just type cal.new in your browser and it will magically open Google Calendar and start creating a new calendar invite!

Just type cal.new to create a new calendar event from your browser.

Bonus: it also works for Docs with doc.new, also for Sheets with sheets.new and best of all, meet.new will launch a new Google Meet call 👌🏼

7. Go private, use free meetings as personal notes

How do you take notes or keep important thoughts on the go?

To make sure you don't forget something important, and to get a reminder about it, you can create a new meeting, and change the Visibility to Private, so you will be the only one to get the notification.

If this is just a reminder, you can also change the Availability setting to Free, so your calendar keeps open for meetings.

You can create secret events that only you will see

8. Name an event "ooo" and your status will switch to OOO

If you create a new event named "ooo" it will automatically switch you to the OOO status for the whole day. Your calendar will display you as OOO and any new meetings invites will be rejected automatically ⛔.

9. Don’t be a bottleneck, allow others to edit

It's rather annoying when you try to reschedule a group meeting, but you can't because the host is not available, or is not participating anymore in the meeting... to avoid this, think about ticking the ☑️ Modify event checkbox beforehand!

For smooth organization, you can allow guests to Modify a calendar event !

Bonus: one more super-power for Google Calendar

If you record your Google Meet calls, you might have already forgotten to hit the record button... at Praiz, we developed a free chrome extension that helps you not to forget to record an important meeting.

You can download the extension on the Chrome Web Store: dont-forget-to-record.praiz.io

Don't forget to record your Google Meet call anymore with Praiz!