How to Add, Share, and Sync Calendars on Mac and iPhone | Dramel Notes

Utilizing your Calendar to maximum effect on your Mac or iPhone can really keep you on top of things. Today, we want to discuss how to add, share, and sync calendars on your Mac and iPhone so your agenda follows you wherever you go.

The Calendar that comes with your Mac and iPhone has everything you might need to create appointments, set reminders, and basically organize your life so you don’t miss important events and happenings.

In order to have a calendar that syncs across your devices, you must be logged into the same iCloud account. This will ensure that, just as with Reminders, everything you do on your Mac will appear on your iPhone or iPad, and vice-versa.

As always, if you’re not seeing your calendars or calendar events show up from device to device, then it might mean you’re not logged into the same iCloud account, or more than likely, you’re dealing with an iCloud sync issue.

We’ll review how to check to make sure everything is working properly later in this article.

Creating and Sharing New Calendars

To create a new calendar, click on the “File” menu, select “New Calendar” and then “iCloud”.

Your new calendar will appear under the iCloud list in the left Calendar pane.

You can name it to whatever you feel like and share it by clicking share icon to the right of the calendar’s name. You can even make it a public calendar, which means anyone can subscribe to a read-only version of your calendar.

You will now be able to access your new calendar on your iPhone or iPad. Open the Calendar app and tap the “Calendars” link at the bottom of the application.

Now you will see all your iCloud calendars listed including your newly created one. If a calendar is shared, you’ll be able to see who is sharing it or with whom it is being shared.

You can edit a calendar by either tapping the “i” symbol next to a calendar or by tapping the “Edit” button and then the calendar you want to attend to.

Once you’re in the edit screen, you can rename or delete your calendar by tapping on it or, more importantly, you can add people with whom you want to share it.

Scroll down to change the color of your calendar or make it public.

Remember, when you make a calendar public, anyone can subscribe to a read-only version of it, so make sure you don’t include any personal details or events.

Editing calendars is also how you add them, so just like on your Mac, when you create a new calendar on your iPhone, it will appear on any other devices connected to that iCloud account.

Making Sure it Syncs Correctly

If everything is syncing as it should, then you’re good to go. If you’re not seeing your new calendars appear on your other devices, then you need to make sure everything is connected to the same iCloud account.

If that isn’t the problem, then check your iCloud settings to ensure your calendars are set up to sync to iCloud.

On you iPhone or iPad, open the Settings, then tap open “iCloud”.

Scroll through your iCloud settings and ensure “Calendars” is enabled.

Next, on your Mac, open the System Preferences and then “iCloud”. Same as on your iOS device, go through the various settings and make sure Calendars has a check next to it.

That then is how you add, share, and sync calendars on your Mac and iOS devices. It works much like Reminders in that you can share with other people and sync across the entire range of your iCloud connected devices.

The nice thing about having all your calendars connected, is that you don’t have to spend time replicating your efforts, such as creating the same calendars, events, etc. Moreover, when you share a calendar, you will then be able to keep everyone else in the loop.

We hope then that you found this article useful and will be able to use it to keep your agenda more organized and effective. If you want to add a question or comment, we encourage your feedback in our discussion forum.

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Reminders Make Google Calendar an Incredible To-Do List | Dramel Notes

Your calendar is meant for scheduling, your to-do app is meant for listing tasks, right? But given how interdependent these two activities are, that segregation just doesn’t make sense. Google is now integrating Google Calendar and to-do lists by introducing Reminders.

Reminders will start as a feature on the mobile app for Google Calendar, available for Android and iPhone, but will soon be available on the web version too. Either way, Google Calendar can be synced across every platform, so this shouldn’t be a big worry.

What Are Reminders?

While they’re called Reminders, this new feature presents a list of all your pending tasks. But they’re tasks on steroids!

Here’s how it works. When you tap the plus icon to create a new calendar event in the mobile app, you’ll now see another option for “Reminder”. Tap that to create a new reminder.

• Reminders use everything Google knows about you to assist you in creating better tasks. For example, if you want a reminder to call your mom, Google will get your mom’s phone number from your contacts and add it into the task.
• Calendar has preset templates for call, email, text, read, check in (flights), make reservations, meet, return, cancel reservation, and watch. Each of these is programmed to find information available on Google to provide further context to your tasks, which is a great way to dig out of your task backlog. Also, as you can see, it follows the principle of making each to-do list item start with an actionable verb.
• Reminders stay in your calendar until you mark them as done. So if you don’t finish that task today, it will carry forward into the next day. Simple and convenient, right?
• You can use non-Calendar Google apps to make new reminders. You can add a reminder using OK Google voice commands, rely on the awesome Google Inbox email app, or even Google Keep.

Packing a Productivity Punch

Google Calendar brings together several productivity methods through the introduction of Reminders. Foremost is a technique called backward scheduling, advocated by author Cal Newport of Study Hacks.

The idea is that you need to schedule your tasks into your calendar. When you have a long to-do list, you don’t know how or where those tasks will fit into your daily plan. And so they remain unattended with the usual “I’ll get to it later” attitude.

By assigning a fixed time to a task, you are more likely to follow up and start on it then, Newport says. He isn’t the only one. Several productivity writers like Art Meisel also recommend thinking about “when” a task needs to be done and scheduling it in your calendar.

Google Calendar’s new feature is putting this productivity method into action by encouraging you to schedule your tasks rather than endlessly adding them to a list. When you’re creating a new reminder, Calendar will prompt you to add a date and time so that it can alert you when the clock strikes.

Perhaps more importantly, by keeping your to-do list and your calendar in the same visual space, you are more likely to start scheduling those tasks, or even knock off the small tasks when you notice a window in time. When you see that your next task is scheduled for at least 5 minutes later, you can take care of one of the small items that you see in your recurring reminders, like paying off your credit card bill.

Why Use Calendar Over To-Do Apps

Yes, Google Keep handles your tasks already, so why should you use Calendar for this purpose? The big reason, in my opinion, is that Calendar is making it easy to add tasks from anywhere, while giving you one place to plan your day and actions.

Add From Anywhere: A big reason many of us don’t end up using a to-do list app regularly is because of the friction involved—the number of steps it takes to add a task is so high, that we just don’t add a task. Since Calendar Reminders can be added from most Google apps and voice commands, that friction is reduced.

Keep Reviewing: One of the principles of David Allen’s GTD productivity method is to constantly review your list of tasks and re-prioritize them. By putting your scheduled tasks and unscheduled tasks in one place, it is easier for you to review and reassess what you should do next.

Be Flexible: When it comes to accomplishing those tasks, Calendar can work similar to how Trello can be a vision board for goals. By giving you a visual glance of everything you need to accomplish today, along with the unscheduled tasks that you need to take care of at some point, Calendar becomes a single interface to get an overview of your full day.

Is Google Calendar the To-Do App for You?

Productivity methods are subjective. What works for me might not work for you, so it’s impossible to answer whether Google Calendar is the perfect fit for you to get things done. But Reminders does go a long way in making it great for people who…

1. prefer to work based on a schedule or based on deadlines,
2. aren’t great at time management and hence end up missing out on small tasks often, and
3. forget about pending tasks from previous days when they start a new day.

As with any productivity app or method, give this a shot. Remember the 3-strike rule of to-do systems, and change if it doesn’t work for you.

I’d guess Google Calendar with Reminders will get a much better system once it’s also available on the web version of Calendar, so you are using it across every gadget.

Is Reminders What Google Calendar Needed?

Will Reminders make you switch to Google Calendar? Are you already using GCal and love this new feature? Is this simply not enough and you’re going to stick with your current calendar and to-do apps? Tell us your thoughts in the comments.

Image Credits:Reminder string by Andrei Simonenko via Shutterstock

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Deleted a Google Calendar Event by Mistake? Here’s How to Get It Back | Dramel Notes

Do you use Google Calendar to keep track of your busy schedule? Lots of people do, as it’s a great service that integrates with all kinds of devices.

If you have a lot of events that come and go, mistakes are bound to happen. In your haste to get things done, you might accidentally delete the wrong event. Are you out of luck? Nope! You can actually restore deleted events to your Calendar relatively easily.

First, and this one is pretty obvious, right after you delete an event, there’s an option to Undo on the top of the screen. This is great if you notice right away and you want to go back in time to get rid of your mistake.

But if you don’t notice right off the bat, there’s a little more to it. First, you’ll need to mouse over the calendar from which you deleted the event, and then click the little arrow that appears to open a dropdown menu. Under said menu is a link labeled Trash.

Click that, and then you will be taken to a screen with the events that have been deleted within the last 30 days. Check the box next to the event you want to restore, and then click Restore selected events.

Note: You can only restore events from the browser version of Google Calendar. However, events deleted from a phone or tablet will still appear for restoration, you just need to go to a computer to actually bring them back.

Have you ever missed an event because you accidentally deleted it from your calendar? It’s okay, it happens to us all!

Image Credit: xtock via ShutterStock

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