15 Google Calendar Tricks by PC Supporter

Power Through Your Schedule with 15 Google Calendar Tricks.

Whether you are a Calendar novice or a longtime user, these tips will give you even greater control and productivity.

This article was originally published in PC Magazine's monthly edition, and reason to publish it again on PC Supporter is only to share tricks of Google Calendar with our readers.

By Elsa Wenzel - PC World Magazine

This guide will help you take control of Google Calendar, whether you are a novice or a power user. Most of the tips apply both to the free Google Calendar and to the one that comes bundled with a paid Google Apps for Business subscription.

Work Faster -- and Focus

1. Use keyboard shortcuts: Google offers many keyboard shortcuts that can save your time. Most are pretty intuitive, for starters, press the letter C on the keyboard to create an event.

2. Find any date in a hurry: Visit the Labs via the gear icon. In the list that appears, enable Jump to date, and then click Save. Now the 'Jump to date' tool will appear to the right of your calendar, and you can punch in any day to do just that.

3. Customize calendar navigation: Go to the mini calendar to the left of the main calendar, and highlight the time frame you wish to see. Your main calendar will instantly adjust. To count your days in increments of, say, three weeks, click the gear icon on your calendar page, and in the General settings change 'Default view' and 'Custom view' to 3 Weeks. Once you save, you'll see 21 days at a time whenever you open your calendar.

4. Oversee your agenda: If you are a power user with lots of shared calendars and appointments, the Day view can be hard on the eyes. To bring up a plain-text list of events for the day ahead, click the Agenda button above your calendar.

5. Dim less-important events: To make pas and repeating future events look a little less vivid, click the gear icon, and on the Calendar Settings page find 'Even dimming'. Check Dim past events or Dim recurring future events (or both).

6. Hide weekends: To show just Monday through Friday, click the gear icon and select Hide weekends in the General settings.

7. Minimize all-day events: If out-of-office entries are clogging your calendar, click the tiny triangular arrow that appears below and to the left of the first day of the week. You'll see a synopsis such as '19 events' at the top, instead of a pile of text.

8. Keep work and play at your fingertips: to set up toggling between home and work calendars, click your email address in the upper-right corner of the Google Calendar page, and select Add account. Enter the details for your private Gmail address. When you click your email address in the corner, you'll see both accounts, and you can toggle between the two calendars.

Google Calendar - Make Scheduling Smarter

Make Scheduling Smarter

9. Schedule and even in one line: You can add an event in one line of text, without using the full Create Event form. Start by clicking anywhere in your calendar; then fill out the text field. By default, any event lasts an hour if you name a start time without an end time, and it lasts all day if you don't list a time at all.

10. See when a colleague is available: Expand the Other Calendars drop-down menu to the left of your calendar to see a list of your third-party calendars. If your company uses Google Apps for Business, start typing someone's email address, and Google will autofil the rest. Select an email address or spell it out to see that person's color-coded appointments.

11. Check whether everyone can meet: Click the gear icon to visit the Labs. Scroll down, select Enable for the Smart Re-scheduler, and click Save. In the calendar, select a meeting. In the Smart Re-scheduler module, click Find a new time. Google will load and display the team's calendars. If your company uses Google Apps for Business, you will also see suggestions for available rooms in the building.

12. Hide events you're not attending: Click the gear icon, and in the General tab of Calendar settings, uncheck Show events you have declined. Under 'Automatically add invitations to my calendar', you can choose not to see those events unless you've accepted the invitation.

13. Let Google Calendar RSVP for you: Click the gear icon, enable Automatically decline events, and save. People who invite you to events at times when you're already booked will get an instant reply.

14. Don't miss the next meeting: Blare a reminder to yourself about your next meeting by adding a module to your calendar. To do so, visit Labs from the gear menu and click Enable for 'Next Meeting'.

15. See who's free or busy: In the gear drop-down menu, choose Labs to enable the 'Free or busy' add-on. Type a colleague's email address there to get an always-on 'free' or 'busy' status message.