Streamlining team collaborations is a challenge today’s professional world has to contend with. With companies operating remotely or using several digital apps to connect, team productivity often suffers. Sounds relatable? If yes, you’re probably not using the Google Calendar efficiently.
Over 500M people around the globe use Google Calendar for scheduling meetings and managing work hours. But its utilities don’t stop here.
You can use Google Calendar’s hidden tools to bring in your A-game. We’ve curated five advanced team management features you never knew existed in Google Calendar. Let’s dive in!
Tips and Tricks to Efficiently Use Google Calendar
Here’s a list of 5 lesser-explored Google Calendar tips and tricks to make the most of your organizational skills.
Customize your time zones as per your work location
Managing your schedule and keeping up with teams is challenging while you travel frequently or work remotely. Google Calendar has its solution by offering adjustable time zone features.
You can set your primary time zone as per your location and add as many secondary time zones as you want by enabling the world clock display.
How to do it:
- Go to your Google Calendar.
- Click on the Setting icon in the top right corner.
- Under General, select Time zone.
- Check the “Display secondary time zone” and “update primary time zone to current location” button.
- You can also tick the “show world clock” box to access multiple time zones.
Receive daily agenda on your email automatically
Making a daily to-do list is helpful but remains a time-taking task. Wouldn’t it be great if your daily agenda gets delivered to your inbox every day? Well, Google Calendar can help you with that as well.
This is one of the most time-saving Google Calendar hacks you can use by following these steps:
How to do it:
- From Settings, scroll down to find “Settings for my calendars” in the bottom left corner.
- Click on your name or desired team calendar and go to the “Other notifications” option
- Look for “daily agenda”
- Click on the drop-down box and switch from "None" to "Email."
This way, you can wake up every day with a clear idea in your head of how the day would proceed. This eliminates decision fatigue and helps you remain focused on your goals.
Setup a separate team calendar
You can enhance team coordination by having a team calendar accessible to every member. This helps everyone keep track of important events. You can create multiple calendars for different teams, customize the sharing details, and update what they can edit.
How to do it:
- Open your GCal
- Scroll down to the bottom left corner and find the “Other calendars” in the menu
- Tap on the “+” button
- Select the “Create new calendar” option
- Name the newly created calendar and fill in the required fields
- Update the Calendar settings as per the need
Use Google Calendar tips and tricks to find suitable time slots for multiple guests in one-click
GCal allows you to share your work hours and availability with teammates. This feature also comes in handy to create events in time slots that everyone can join without compromising their existing schedules. You don’t have to check in with every member for their availability before scheduling a meeting.
How to do it:
- Select the team calendar you’re sharing with your team
- Click the “+” button from the top left corner
- Tap on “Event”, and a pop-up window will appear.
- Select the “Find a time” button and start adding guests by typing their names
- As soon as you add members, their schedule will display beside yours
- If you want to add multiple guests, use the “Suggested Time” option. It'll help you automatically provide available time slots for all the participants.
Pro tip: Install the Loopin Chrome extension for a smoother experience and more options. You can also use it to integrate Google Calendar with your preferred app like Slack, Notion, etc. This allows you to share planned tasks or meeting notes with other team members.
Leverage quick responses
GCal sends meeting invites automatically to all participants. Sometimes, you might want to convey a particular note to the invitees. For this, GCal offers four generic quick responses that you can add with the mail. You can edit them to add your custom message accordingly.
This Google Calendar feature is only available on mobile devices.
How to do it:
- Open Google Calendar on your mobile phone and click the hamburger menu from the top left corner
- Go to Settings and select the “General” button
- Scroll down to the bottom and tap on the “Quick responses” option.
- This will take you to the four ready-to-use messages
- You can click on any one of them to edit and add your customized message.
Recover deleted events
Don’t panic if you’ve incorrectly deleted an event. Google Calendar can help restore that event with all the associated information as it was right before the deletion.
How to do it:
- Visit the Google Calendar and click on the settings icon
- From the drop-down menu, click on “trash”
- This will redirect you to the list of deleted events
- Tap on the backward-pointing arrow ↩ to restore the selected event.
Remember: you can only recover events you’ve deleted in the past 30 days.
Final Words
Google Calendar is the simplest-to-use app to access your entire team and keep everyone updated. With the above-mentioned Google Calendar features, you can have a productive work schedule and efficient team collaboration.
Don’t limit your digital calendar to mere reminders or setting meetings. It has more to offer than you think. Use the following Google Calendar trips and tricks to up your team management game:
- Customize your time zones as per your work location.
- Receive daily agenda on your email automatically.
- Set up a separate team calendar.
- Find suitable time slots for multiple guests in one click.
- Leverage quick responses to send messages to all attendees.
- Recover deleted events.
