Google Calendar is currently the most popular productivity app on Google Play Store in the United States. It conveniently integrates with your mailboxes and keeps your schedules organized. With the right set of Chrome extensions, you can turn GCal into a productivity powerhouse.
This post lists eight GCal extensions for Chrome that can further enhance your productivity and equip you with helpful customizations to stay on top of your tasks. From reviewing past meetings to sharing your day with others, these 8 Google Calendar extensions make it easy to toggle through the modern-day working style.
1. Streamlining tasks and notes with Loopin
The new work model indexes heavily on meetings to stay connected. Most teams' workflows leverage Google Suite – Chrome, Meet, Calendar, and Mail - to stay on top of the tasks. Truth be told, managing so many meetings can get a little chaotic. Running late for a chat with the boss, forgetting where you jotted the last meeting minutes, and constant doubts over whether the current topic was already covered - the problems are endless.
To make your Google Meet sessions more productive, Loopin adds some super helpful features to your Google Calendar. You can quickly add meeting notes directly on the Google calendar without changing tabs. This helps you keep track of all crucial details in one place and share them via mail, Notion, or Slack.
If it’s a recurring meeting or you decide to meet the same person after a few days, the Loopin extension offers you an option to load the previous meeting’s notes. This way, you can start where you left off on the previous day, discuss progress, and set new agendas for the next meeting.
The Loopin GCal extension also sends out notifications and reminders to all participants so they can either join the meetings on time or leave a quick note that they’re running late.
Loopin is the perfect pick for busy professionals who love organization and want to stay on top of meetings. You can review your schedule, recap any previous notes, access your to-do list, and add your highlights of the day to finish work calmly.
2. Event Merge, to go beyond Google Calendar
We have been focusing on Google Calendar, but most of us maintain multiple digital calendars for professional and personal use. Sometimes, it can get tiresome if you get notifications of the same event from more than one calendar at the same time. This is where another competent Chrome extension, Event Merge, can be handy.
As the name suggests, Event Merge simplifies your calendar by merging multiple duplicate events into a single occurrence. It is also great for those who believe in visual learning, as it color codes the events for ease of access.
Irrespective of where you are and which calendar you added an event to, Event Merge will bring it to you right on Google Calendar. You can then use Loopin to take notes, add reminders, and streamline your overall meetings and workflow.
3. Quick accessibility with Checker Plus
Sometimes, even small modifications to a meeting can bring a huge difference to your day’s schedule. Checker Plus is a Google Calendar extension that helps you keep track and manage all the tiny changes to your routine.
Checker Plus adds a button in your browser toolbar to quickly access the calendar and further edit it. With a single click, you can add Facebook events and other details from web pages on your calendar. It’s customizable and lets you glance through your day, add multiple calendars and enter the full-screen mode with just a click.
This Chrome extension goes a step beyond to offer sound and voice alerts for events in your calendar.
4. Timely, for proper time management
Are you a project-based team member who constantly needs to keep a tab on time? Timely is a handy Chrome extension that can automatically track the time spent on different events and appointments. This extension is especially useful to record billable hours when you have to charge according to the time you dedicate to a project.
You can also schedule your upcoming week and monitor the trends of time spent on different activities. Timely can help calculate the cost of internal communication by recording the time your team spends on email, Google Meet, and Slack, alongside events and appointments. The auto-import feature from Google Calendar can help keep all the details in one place.
If Timely makes it apparent that you’ve been spending too much time on meetings, here are some helpful suggestions to reduce the time spent in meetings and stay more productive.
5. Easier team management with Google Calendar Groups
With a team to manage, having multiple calendars can sometimes create clutter. Google Calendar Groups solves this challenge by categorizing and grouping your calendars. With this GCal extension, you can access multiple calendars from your teammates in one go.
Wondering how the Google Calendar extension can help you? Suppose you want to host a Google Meet, but there are too many teammates to invite. With one click, you can group all their calendars and easily check their availability.
This time-saver extension can help in scheduling meetings quickly and avoid any confusion. For everyone's convenience, you can then use Loopin to add meeting notes, recaps from previous Google Meets, and side notes. You can implement these actionable tips to further enhance your time management skills.
6. G-Calize for color-coding the days
Did you know that NCBI affirms the positive impact of colors on memory performance and cognitive functioning? To leverage the color psychology, G-Calize is one of the best Chrome extensions for Google Calendar.
Gmail already color-codes the mailbox, and G-Calize brings the same feature to Google calendar. You can assign a color to each day, thus making it easier to review your work when you're accessing the calendar in a weekly or monthly view. With color-coding, you can quickly identify your relatively less hectic days and schedule further tasks there. It is also great for decreasing your cognitive load while skimming through the agenda for the month.
G-Calize also has several customization options to change the text color according to the background. If you use this GCal extension with Loopin, you can create customized meeting notes and assign different colors as per the priority. You can further color-code your weekends to have a sweet reminder of relaxation whenever you glance at the calendar.
7. Send To Calendar, from anywhere on the web
Think about the convenience of creating new events and reminders without even opening the Google Calendar. That's what the ‘Send To Calendar’ GCal extension brings to you.
Simply go to any event detail, highlight it, and right-click on it. Then, when you go to 'Send To Calendar,' the event can be saved directly to your Google Calendar, irrespective of the webpage or social media platform. This Chrome extension works across the web.
Send To Calendar is extremely helpful if you frequently create events across platforms throughout the day. It saves the effort of manual entry and automates the process for your ease.
8. GCalPlus, to explore hyper-personalization
Explored all extensions and still want more? GCalPlus brings hyper-customization options for your Google Calendar. With a single glance, you can check your busy days in a month, access the days with events scheduled, and identify duplicate events.
This Google Calendar extension also displays the full event name if you hover over the title. Its flexible options and view modes make it simple to avoid event overlapping. You can even hide or view all events in a specified time range.
Plenty of other customization option is available with this Google Calendar extension to make your workflow management more effective.
Final Words: Making Sense of Chaos with Google Calendar Extensions
There are numerous benefits of staying organized with Google Calendar. Add in the features of brilliant Google meet extensions like Loopin, and you get a full-fledged productivity booster for your workplace.
While every Chrome extension makes life a little easier, Loopin goes beyond Google Meet and Calendar. It helps you take notes of all that’s important in your business meetings, share them via email, Slack, or Notion, and access them during the next meeting with a single click. If you’re looking for the ultimate Google Calendar extension, then Loopin is definitely the first pick. Declutter your mind, move beyond shuffling through notes on numerous apps, and start conducting successful meetings with Loopin.
For the ambitious individual, 2022 has been all about mindful productivity, self-care, and organization. An underrated productivity hack is to plan your day on a digital calendar, whether working from home or the office.
