Comments on: Nine Ways I Use Google Calendar to Keep My Money Straight

By: 水樹奈々

水樹奈々 — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 05:33:21 +0000

Great article. Thanks for posting it.

By: Cari

Cari — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:09:57 +0000

I love my Google Calendar and it has done wonders for my planning. I started using it for bills earlier this year–the only problem I ran into was that once or twice my bill due dates would change randomly as dictated by the biller/creditor/whoever, and I would get a late payment (which has never happened to me before!!) You must still be vigilant about checking those due dates every month, even if you set up as a repeating event.

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:17:20 +0000

I haven’t really used Google calender myself, but I saw this article that may be of use to people who do:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10290955-2.html?tag=smallCarouselArea.4

By: Mighty

Mighty — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 04:57:02 +0000

I really like the idea of doing our meal plan in Google Calendars. I always do it on paper, but this would be neat because my husband could see it and counter. We both really liked the idea of planning out frozen meals, esp. since we forget that our frozen food is an option too.

Also, I am going to add expected car maintenance to the calendar we share, because it will make it easier to plan for “Major Maintenance” on our car.

By: DonnaGator

DonnaGator — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:22:45 +0000

Thanks for the article! I never thought of using color-coded calendars for different tasks. Great idea.

A couple of other features I love about Google Calendar: I can download calendars from the web for my favorite sports teams (Florida Gators) and import them into Google Calendar. Do you know how long it would take me to enter an entire season of football, basketball, and baseball games into a paper planner? With Google calendar, it just takes a few clicks.

Also, when you enter a location in an appointment, Google Calendar automatically links to a map of the location.

By: Amy Sinclair

Amy Sinclair — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:34:45 +0000

I can’t live without Google Calendar! It’s set up is so easy to use and I love how email reminders are sent to you so you can view them from your phone while on the run. A little helpful tip to keep you on track: Create a calendar titled “Completed.” This way, whenever you complete a task you can change the color to indicate that the task is completed. It’s a great way to keep your family posted on what tasks have been completed if you’re using the calendar for the whole family to view.

By: harry

harry — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:28:59 +0000

For tracking goal milestones, you may want to check out http://www.GoalsOnTrack.com, a very nicely built web app designed for tracking goals and todo lists, and supports time tracking too. It's clear, focused, easy to navigate, worth a try.

By: Silvie

Silvie — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 09:51:48 +0000

Great idea to use multiple calendars and put in action what Steven Covey wrote in his book
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

By: Karin

Karin — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 01:04:07 +0000

Great post-I love the idea of using the calendar for scheduling maintenance and meals. Smart!

By: DebtorinNYC

DebtorinNYC — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:57:19 +0000

Google has a great feature in which it picked up keywords from emails and allows you to add it to your calendar with just a click.

For example, if someone write to you (to your gmail) “Can we meet on July 15th at 3 p.m.”, Google will ask you if you would like to add it to your calendar. Very cool.

By: Corporate Barbarian

Corporate Barbarian — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:21:50 +0000

I’ve used Google calendar for birthday reminders, doctor’s appointments, etc, but I never thought of using it for bill payment reminders. Thanks for the tip!

By: Laura

Laura — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:10:53 +0000

Trent – AWESOME tip. I didn’t know about Google calendar. I love it. I have paper calendars (plural) at home because not all the things I need to remember and do can fit on one. Google calendar lets you create many different calendars and they are color-coded. NICE! It’s easier to input information and change stuff, and I can access it from home or work. Thanks, Trent.

By: tentaculistic

tentaculistic — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:41:33 +0000

“but I wonder how you can keep all those calendars straight. It’s hard enough to remember to look at one calendar, how can you remember to look at all those calendars every day? Wouldn’t it make sense to put all those events on one calendar and if necessary, colour code or tag them for each type of event?”

Oh darn it, Sara got to this one first! Oh well, I just learned it, thanks to Trent (no really, thanks Trent!), so I’ll say it again.

And the color coding makes it worth it just by itself! Maybe someone smarter than I figured out how to have one single calendar with differently colored entries, but I sure don’t know how! :) So Trent’s idea of having multiple sub-calendars is a great work-around.

When you have different calendars (eg “work” “family” “meals” etc), you can set different colors for the calendar, so the entries pop up on the combined calendar in different colors… then if you decide you don’t need to see “meals” anymore, you just unclick that calendar on the left-hand column, and voila all the light-brown (in mine) meal menu items disappear.

This is useful b/c I was getting lost in Google Calendar, so I had stopped using it. I just had too many things in a day, esp when I scheduled recurring tasks (water houseplants, water garden, call Mom, etc), so I couldn’t see all of them.

Thanks for the help Trent, I didn’t know about that cool feature, thanks!

By: Ryan

Ryan — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:39:47 +0000

For those that don’t want to pay for a data plan, you could get a blackberry and just pay per data use. I don’t recommend this though.

You could buy an iPod touch. And just sync in range of wi-fi. Although the higher price of the touch would pay for 4 months of unlimited data, something to consider.

By: Richby30Retireby40Blog

Richby30Retireby40Blog — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:38:46 +0000

I can’t live without my blackberry when i’m working. All appointments go in there.

Rgds,

By: Brigitte

Brigitte — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:53:15 +0000

@steve – the process that Trent is describing is the process that you are describing. Check out the google calendar (or actually most any electronic calendar these days) and you will see that there is an option for “different calendars” in the same account, each of which get a different colour, which is how that colour-coding and tagging for each type of event actually happens. It’s not like having a separate planner for bills, medical appointments, and family time–it’s like using a different colour pen for each that you can turn on and off with a click if you’re only wanting to see one set of events or another. For example, if you’re paying bills, maybe you just want to see bill due dates and soccer practice schedule is just distracting, but if you’re scheduling a doctor’s appointment for yourself or your kids, then soccer practice is time that is already accounted for, and when you may want to avoid scheduling something else. So you can turn the soccer schedule on and off with a click.

@Trent – I have my bills in the calendar in Quicken, and everything else on my iCal, which syncs with my laptop, my phone and my iPod touch (that I use as a PDA). I really prefer that interface better, and I’m not totally stuck if I don’t have the internet where I am. At one point I had been syncing my iCal with google cal, but it it was a cumbersome process that lost too much data in the transfer and didn’t sync accurately. That problem may be changed now, it’s worth looking into I guess.

By: onaclov

onaclov — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:47:22 +0000

One more thing trent (as well as others), if you’re keeping a price book, you might notice trends of sales on certain items, and once you have that knowledge you could calendar it, and then see it across the season when the best times to buy certain items are, and have them texted to you, or if you’re handy, you might be able to play with the API to generate a grocery list that already has the items best on sale…..

By: onaclov

onaclov — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:42:59 +0000

Another great tip along the lines of the add reminder, I have my cell phone setup through the calendar so I actually get text messages about birthdays, I sometimes don’t check my email every day (although usually I do), so getting a text message reminder really helps (Also the Google calendar will sync with your IPOD like someone already mentioned above, and you will get a notification from there).

Additionally I add the year of birth in the comments of the calendar for the birthdays, then its a simple math calculation to remember how old they are (I have the WORST memory).

Good luck I have been using Gcal for everything now and LOVE it.

By: Trent

Trent — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:32:09 +0000

“In other calendars the reminders don’t have a time range which they block. But in Google, there is a starting time and ending time.”

There doesn’t have to be. Just check the “all day event” box.

By: Peggy

Peggy — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:56:40 +0000

I use my electronic calendar to remind me of recurring but unusual chores. Check the smoke alarms, change the furnace filter, change the oil on the car, rotate the tires, etc. I have another calendar for gardening: start the carrots, mulch the cabbage, mound the potatoes, cut back the roses, etc.

I’ve burned out four Palm organizers and now keep my “brain” on my Mac running iCal. I really want an iPod touch, but that’s going to take some serious saving.