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Kevin Stratvert

📆 Google Calendar Tips and Tricks

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Hi everyone, Kevin here. Today we are going to look at the best tips and tricks in Google Calendar. As always, to jump around this video, feel free to use the timestamps down below. All right let’s check these out. At number #1, we have keyboard shortcut keys, and these help you quickly navigate throughout your calendar. It also happens to be a fantastic way to make your coworkers think that you’re a computer nerd and how do I know this? Well, let’s just say that I know some keyboard shortcut keys. With shortcut keys, you can jump between views, you can jump to a specific date, you can create a new event, you can jump to today. Those are a few examples of what you can do with keyboard shortcut keys, and you only have to remember one shortcut key. Simply press the question mark key on your keyboard and that’ll open up a cheat sheet with all of the available shortcut keys. If you don’t see this, you may need to enable it. Go up to the settings gear in the top right-hand corner, then click on settings, and then on the left-hand side click on keyboard shortcuts, and then make sure that this box is checked. At #2, as much as I like keyboard shortcut keys, the mouse also has a lot of power. Here in my calendar, I want to see the next three upcoming days. When I click into my calendar views, there’s no preset view for that. I can go over to the side panel calendar and here I’ll highlight three days, and this updates my calendar to show me those days. That’s pretty cool. Also, I can reschedule meetings with my mouse. Here this meeting is coming up relatively early in the week and I want a little bit more time to prepare. I can simply press on that event and drag it to the end of the week. I can also set-up new events by using my mouse. Here I can drag on my calendar, and I can specify the exact amount of time for this event, and I can use this as well for multiple day events. Here I’ll drag across multiple days. At #3, you can create an event directly from an e-mail in Gmail. Here I have an e-mail thread with Nestor where we just keep going back and forth again and again and we don’t seem to be landing on a solution. Sometimes you just can’t beat a face-to-face meeting or a face to camera to monitor to face meeting. To set this up, click on the ellipsis up on top and then there’s the option to create an event and this pulls in all the details from the email thread. The subject becomes the title. The e-mail thread itself becomes the description. Also, everyone on the to and CC line automatically becomes a guest. All I need to do now is set a location and then click on save. At #4, you can turn on additional time zones on your calendar. This way it makes it easier to schedule meetings with people who work in different parts of the world and also this way you won’t schedule a meeting in the middle of their night, unless of course this is a power move on your part. To set this up, click on these settings here in the top right-hand corner, then click on settings and then click on time zone over on the left-hand side. Check the box that says display secondary time zone. In the drop-down list, you can now choose the other time zone. You can also assign labels to make it easier to recognize these time zones on your calendar. Back on your calendar, you’ll now see an additional time zone appear. At #5, you can receive multiple notifications for an event. Why would anyone ever need something like this? Well, maybe you have a goldfish brain like mine and between receiving the original notification and the start time, you might completely forget about the event. To set this up, over on the left-hand side, hover over the calendar where you would like to add this, then click on the ellipsis and then select settings. On the left-hand side, click on event notifications and here you’ll see the default notification time. Mine is currently set to 15 minutes before the meeting. You can also add an additional notification and here I set one up for 0 minutes before the meeting, so this way right as the meeting starts, I get another notification. This way I won’t be late, and I won’t miss it. You can even add additional notifications. Let’s say you want maybe an e-mail message the day before the meeting. You can set that up as well. You can also set this up for individual events if you don’t want to mess with the default for all events. Simply click into one of your events and then here too you can add notifications. You can have both a notification, or you could even have an e-mail message. #6, and this is a quick one. You can create a new event simply by navigating to cal.new. As an extra bonus, you can also navigate to docs.new, sheets.new, slides.new, sites.new, and you can create new content to your heart’s content. Tip #7, you can more quickly get back to your calendar by adding it to your Windows taskbar. Within Edge, click on the ellipsis in the top right-hand corner. Then go down to more tools and here you have the option to pin it to your taskbar. Within Google Chrome, you can also do this, but it’s a few more steps. Click on the ellipsis, then go down to more tools, and then click on create shortcut. This adds a shortcut to your desktop. If that’s all you want, well, then you’re done, but if you want to place it on your taskbar, right click on that, go down to show more options, and then you can click on pin to taskbar, and here too we have an icon on the taskbar. Now you simply click on that and that’ll open up your Google Calendar. Tip #8, you can add calendars of interest to your calendar. Here for instance, on my calendar you can see the upcoming holiday Saint Patrick’s Day and it falls on a Thursday, but I could add even more than just that. On the left-hand side, right next to other calendars, I can click on this plus icon and then select browse calendars of interest. Here I can add my friends’ birthdays. This way I could be a good friend and wish them a happy birthday. I can add regional holidays. I can add religious holidays or another form of religion for some people, you could even add sport calendars. Here I want to add the Michigan Wolverines calendar, so I’ll navigate through and let me select this. Now if I go forward to September, I see that the next game is coming up on a Saturday. If I want to turn off this overlayed view, on the left-hand side, I just have to make sure to uncheck this box next to the Michigan Wolverines. Tip #9, you can receive a daily agenda e-mail. I’m really good about checking my e-mail every morning, but I don’t always check my calendar and this way I simply get my calendar in my e-mail. To set this up, on the left-hand side, hover over the calendar where you would like to activate this. Then click on the ellipsis and then click on settings. On the left-hand side, click on other notifications and here we see the option to receive a daily agenda e-mail. I’ll click on the drop down and make sure that it’s set to e-mail. Tip #10, while we’re here, you can also adjust your other notifications settings. By default, you receive an e-mail every time someone responds to one of your meetings, but once you get larger meetings, that means that there are a lot of emails hitting your inbox. Instead, I just check the event itself to see who’s accepted and who’s declined. So here I can change that setting to none and that way I’ll spare my inbox from some emails. Tip #11, you can bring your Google Calendar into Microsoft Outlook if you happen to use Outlook. Within Google Calendar, hover over the calendar that you would like to bring to Outlook. Then click on the ellipsis, then click on settings. Within settings, click on integrate calendar and within this category, you’ll see a section that says secret iCal address. Sounds pretty mysterious. Let’s click on the copy icon. Within Microsoft Outlook, go up to the file menu, then click on account settings, account settings again, and then Internet calendars. Then click on new. Here paste in that address that we copied. Next you could type in a name, and this is the name that Outlook will use to refer to this calendar. You could also type in a description, and you can modify these other settings. Once you click on OK, you’ll now find this calendar under other calendars on the left-hand side, and when you click on it you can now view that in Outlook. Tip #12, you can share your calendar with others. This is especially useful if let’s say you’re working really closely with someone and you want them to have visibility into your calendar. To set this up, on the left-hand side, hover over the calendar that you would like to share. Then click on the ellipsis and click on settings. Within settings, click on share with specific people and here you can now add people. You could type in e-mail addresses to whoever you would like to share this with. Down below, you can also set the permissions. So basically, how much would you like to share with this person. At the very top, you could simply share when you’re free and when you’re busy and all the way at the bottom, this gives essentially full control over your calendar. Once you share, the recipient will receive an e-mail that allows them to subscribe to your calendar. Once they subscribe, within their Google Calendar, they’ll see this appear under other calendars and they can now overlay this calendar view or your calendar view over their own calendar view. Tip #13, you can also request access to someone else’s calendar. Over on the left-hand side next to other calendars, click on the plus icon and then select subscribe to calendar. You can now type in an e-mail address, and this will send a request to them to give you access to their calendar. Once they accept and they set permissions, you’ll now see their calendar appear under other calendars, and then you could either check or uncheck the box to overlay it on top of your calendar. Tip #14, you can add additional calendars, so let’s say you want to have a shared calendar for your family or maybe your team at work. You can very easily do that. On the main calendar screen, in the bottom left-hand corner next to other calendars, click on the plus icon and then select create new calendar. Right here you could type in a name, and you could also type in a description. Once you do that, click on create. You’ll now see your new calendar in the bottom left-hand corner and when you click into that you can modify the settings, so you could set who has access to this calendar. You can also configure the notification settings. Back in the main calendar view, when you create a new event, you can now decide which calendar this new event should go on. So here I’ll create a new event and I’ll place it on my new calendar. On the left-hand side of the event, you’ll see a stripe of color. This helps inform you as to which calendar this event is part of. Also, over on the left-hand side, I can check or uncheck this box to toggle the calendar on or off on the main view. Tip #15, you can publish your calendar to a website, say for instance a Google site. Hover over the calendar that you would like to publish and then click on the ellipsis. Here click on settings. Within settings on the left-hand side, go to integrate calendar and here you’ll see the embed code, but you can also customize what your calendar looks like. I’ll click on this button. Here I could decide on what to show. I could also set the dimensions. I can choose the background color and I have many other settings that I can configure. Once I’m all done customizing this page, I can click on copy embed code at the top. Now I can go to a place like Google Sites, and here I can insert the embed code. Here I’ll paste it in and now I can see my calendar on this page. If you want a full tutorial of how to use Google Sites, check out the link up above. Tip #16, and unfortunately this is the last one for today, but it’s also a really good one. Let’s say you set-up an event, but maybe you’ll be on vacation, and you want someone else to drive the event. You can change the owner. On your calendar, click on the event, then click on the ellipsis, and then select change owner. You can now type in someone else’s e-mail address, and they can take over the event. All right, well, let me know down below in the comments, do you have any other calendar tips and tricks? To watch more videos like this one, please consider subscribing. I’ll see you in the next video.

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