A digital calendar is an essential tool if you want an organized life. Most digital devices these days offer a fully featured calendar application by default. But if you use multiple devices, the task of adding events can become somewhat onerous.
Google Calendar, on the other hand, is a Cloud based service, so your events, appointments, reservations & general dates of interest can be accessed from any device, all in one place, which gives you control.
Google calendar is a very versatile tool because it offers much more than the ability to add events manually. The calendar can be manipulated via several inbuilt methods to incorporate a plethora of date & time based information.
Adding Google’s options
By default Google adds flight, restaurant & other reservation types automatically from Gmail, so there’s no need to laboriously pour over dates in order to add this data manually. Next, Google also has an inbuilt tool that which allows you to add several relevant calendars to the default, which, depending on your location, can include calendars depicting national holidays, sporting events or moon phases. Take a look at the left hand settings bar on your calendar, to find the “Add Calendars” button to view options.
Adding your own calendars
Any calendar, which can be exported as an .ical or .csv file can be added to your Google Calendar. This means that you can export your appointments & other important date based events from your PC’s calendar or from Microsoft Office.
The procedure is outlined below (or you can find it on Google’s support pages, here)
- Click the ‘Gear’ icon on the ‘Settings’ tab.
- Select Import/Export.
- Browse on your device to find the file/files exported from your calendars.
- Upload.
Note that these imported calendars can only be updated by adding a new file to override the old information.
Adding from other applications
Zapier assists in connecting over 1500 apps to your Google Calendar, & the beauty is that you can automatically set up inclusions based on your own set of rules. So, if you need to import from Todoist or Trello, it’s as easy as connecting the ‘Zap’. Also, Zapier offers easy integration with Google Calendar from ‘Airtable’, the Zapier event based calendar, simply add your Google account to Zapier & a 2-way flow of constantly updated information is launched.
Adding other calendars
There are hundreds of Online information-based Websites offering interesting calendars that you can add to Google Calendar, such as ‘Gigs’ from your favorite band’s Website(or try JamBase for events for various music events), or movie release dates for various countries from IMDB, or sporting event-dates from your favorite team’s website, or TV shows from your favorite station’s Website. IcalShare also offers a selection of unusual calendars, which can be added to Google Calendar.
As you can see there’s a host of interesting information you can add to your Google Calendar, which should add spice to any boring schedule & keep you entertained.
Image Credit: Google
