4 secrets to Google Calendar efficiency that will blow your mind

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Good heavens, Google Calendar has a ton of things to do.

Google’s agenda management app has gone from being a simple place to store your busy schedules to serving as a complex hub for all types of communications. And it is constantly evolving, especially in recent times.

No matter how many hours you’ve spent staring at Calendar’s virtual walls, in fact, I’d be willing to bet the service still contains some features you have yet to come across. And some of them could make all the difference in the world when it comes to your dating success.

Here are four great Google Calendar secrets that will change the way you interact with your agenda. Freeze some time on your calendar and get into the habit of using them. Trust me – you’ll be glad you did.

Secret n. 1 of Google Calendar: no connection? No problem!

For years, Google Calendar has suffered from an annoying limitation: the website won’t work offline. And since Calendar doesn’t have native desktop apps for Windows PCs and Macs, that meant you had no way to access your calendar from a computer with no connection (unless you were using a Chromebook, where the option to install Android apps offers a mobile – app-based workaround).

Well, guess what? Google silently flipped a switch and added offline support for everyone on the Calendar website. The company announced offline access to the calendar for Workspace paying customers earlier this year, but the option’s widespread availability appears to have sneaked under the radar.

And that may explain why it hasn’t been noticed more widely – it’s up to you to find and activate the option. Until you do this, your calendar will continue to require a connection to work.

Fortunately, there isn’t much to do as long as you’re using Chrome:

Click the gear icon in the upper right corner of the Google Calendar website, then click “Settings” in the menu that appears. Click on the word “Offline” in the menu on the left of the screen in the main settings area. Check the box next to “Activate offline calendar”.

And that’s it – the Calendar website will now automatically sync your data. The last four weeks of events, as well as any future events, will be available even when you don’t have an active connection.

Secret n. 2 of Google Calendar: the retirement of the Meet

At some point, not long ago, Google started automatically adding a link to Google Meet in every single Calendar event you created. And that’s not all – it also includes that link with every event invitation you send out.

If you’re actually using Google Meet for an event, it might be a welcome convenience. But otherwise, it’s pretty obnoxious and potentially pretty confusing too, especially if your event will take place on Zoom or another video conferencing platform, as attendees will then see two different links within the invitation. Or worse yet, they might just see the wrong link and end up in the wrong place.

An invitation to a Zoom meeting, with a Meet link automatically added at the bottom. How come?!

Google definitely doesn’t announce that this is happening. Also, it’s not entirely obvious that you can reverse the pattern and place it in a much more sensible off-by-default arrangement, where a Meet link only appears if and when you deliberately click a button to add it.

To do this step:

Again, click on the gear icon in the upper right corner of the Calendar website and select “Settings”. Click “Event Settings” in the menu on the left of the screen in the main settings area. Look for the line that says “Automatically add Google Meet video conferences to events I create” and uncheck the box next to it.

Aah, isn’t it nice to solve a problem you didn’t even know existed?

Secret n. Google Calendar 3: A vacation from the holidays

Lately I’ve heard from a handful of readers who have wondered why their calendars are becoming unusually crowded with seemingly random events that don’t apply to their lives.

As you’d expect, there’s a reason: A few weeks ago, Google expanded its default “Holidays” calendar within Google Calendar to include a number of additional events in addition to basic federal holidays, things like Cinco de Mayo, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, and other such specific occasions.

That’s all well and good, but if you’re aiming to keep your calendar limited to the elements that directly affect your schedule, all those extra things can create a lot of clutter.

The Google Calendar “Holidays” calendar includes many more events than before.

Fear not, though, as there’s a quick and easy way to turn off all those extra holidays. And once you know where to find it, it will take you 20 seconds to make it.

Here’s the secret:

Search the left sidebar of the Calendar website for “Holidays” or perhaps “Holidays in [your country]”-calendar. It should be under the” Other calendars “heading. (And if you don’t see the sidebar at all, click the three-line menu icon in the top left corner of the site to reveal it.) Click on the three-dot menu icon next to that calendar and select “Settings.” On the next screen, look for the line that says “Holiday calendar content” and change its setting from “Public and other holidays” to “Only public holidays “.

This will limit your holiday list to only the major federal holidays for your current country. If you’d rather turn off holidays entirely, you can too: uncheck the box next to the same calendar in the Google Calendar sidebar, or if you want to permanently delete it, go back to that calendar’s settings and scroll down to the bottom of the screen to find the “Unsubscribe” option.

Secret n. 4: Google Calendar: the collection of code words

Last but not least, have you ever noticed how Calendar sometimes displays certain events in a larger, more eye-catching format, with special graphics attached? It’s something you see in the “Schedule” view of Calendar’s mobile apps and it happens automatically, without any effort or control on your part.

These illustrations are triggered by the presence of certain code words within the titles of your events. And once you know which code words bring up which illustrations, you can hack the system and make any event on your agenda stand out with a specific illustration around it.

Events with special Calendar code words are bigger, more colorful, and more eye-catching in the app’s “Schedule” view.

Some code words are pretty obvious, like the word “dentist” in the title of an event that brings up an image with toothbrushes, the word “haircut” that generates an image with a hair dryer and scissors, and the word “Thanksgiving” it generates -Well you know.

But others are terms you probably would never think of using in your agenda, not deliberately, anyway. For instance:

If you add the word “ebook” to the end of an event title, the event will appear in a zoomed-in form with a book, newspaper, and a pair of glasses around it. The phrase “coding time” will put a computer, phone and tablet around the associated appointment. Having “English Lesson” anywhere in an event title will put chat bubbles and headphones on the item line. And the term “plan day” will bring an imaginative looking clock and calendar illustration to any event involving it.

There are a lot more code words where they come from. I have the full list of Calendar code words here. Take a look, try a few and find the ones you like, then code your calendar and make your important events stand out with the intensity that grabs the attention they deserve.

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