Why You Need Google Calendar to Organize Your Life

how to organize your life

 

How to Use Google Calendar to Organize Your Life

It’s free. It syncs. You (and whoever you choose) can access it from your phone, tablet or computer. This serves a multitude of functions for me. The rule in my house is: If it’s not on our calendar– it doesn’t exist.

The lie that I used to tell myself, “I don’t need to write that down.” Well, yeah, I actually do. These days, my brain is running much like my 10-year-old laptop. Memory full and slow processing speed.

Time is probably one of our most precious commodities. Check out how you can organize your life with Google Calendar too! 

What you can track to organize your life

  • Activities.  The older my children get, the busier we have become.  Each child has their own obligations; school programs., friends, assignments., trips, etc.

Then there is all of my time requirements; doctors appointments, dentist appointments, teachers meetings, PTA, practices, etc. There are future school breaks– are we taking a trip anywhere?? You see where I’m going with this?

  • Important Household functions. Car maintenance.  Fill prescriptions. Birthdays. Christmas cards mailed.

Schedule it all out, with reminders.

  • Budgeting. Make sure you are paying bills on time. Want to know when your water bill is due–how handy would it be to have it at your fingertips anywhere you go? Plus, you can make a note of when you paid it.

Or let’s say you get paid biweekly and you need to see what bills can get paid and when. Put your bills with due dates on the calendar and shift dates to the left and right as needed.

Need to remember to file quarterly payments for taxes- schedule it out here.

  • Cleaning. Need to make sure you remember to have the furnace serviced before winter? When to change those pesky air filters? Here you go! And you cant set it and forget it to keep on repeating, year after year.
  • Meal Plan. Yes, I mentioned this above, but this is just another tool I can use to plan everything out. In Google Calendar you have the ability to include information in the description, which is a great place to list ingredients or even copy and paste a recipe.

So accessible and handy if you find yourself making your grocery list. Or, not that I’ve ever done this *cough*, but you find yourself at the store and your list at home–it’s on your phone.

Plus, if you find a meal that your family loves, you can go ahead and schedule it to repeat in the future.

  • Historical record.  Hear me out, before you skip ahead. Your child took a sick day. You paid for child’s photos. Your child got the flu vaccine. You purchased a big ticket item with a time sensitive warranty. I track it here.

I cannot tell you how many times, I have gone back to my calendar to try to track something down. “When did I meet that potential client for lunch?” Oh wait, I can go back and look. My toddler just used my laptop like a frisbee. “Is it still under warranty? Oh look, I purchased this 10 months ago  and I snapped a pic of the receipt and attached it to the date!!”

  • Upcoming concerts, upcoming movies, new book releases, road races, etc.  Love road races? You can track them all (along with the details in the description) so you can decide if you want to participate. The new Steven King book, or some new-to-you author– you can track book releases so you can buy on release day. U2 is coming to your town and tickets are on sale when??
  • Fitness Tracker. The distance you ran. What time are those Spin classes? Membership dues? How much water did I drink? All contained here.
  • Block out your day. You can really up your productivity level by blocking time to maximize what you are able to accomplish!
  • Goals. Visibly mark out your progress. Track accomplishments. See where things took a left turn. Check in to see where you are. 
organize your life

Why Google Calendar is the answer to organizing your life

Offline. You do not need to be connected to check in and see what’s going on.

Email reminders. Free up brain space! No need to worry you are going to forget something. You can just have it sent to you the night or even an hour before the event. Super helpful!

Shareable calendars.  Your family wants to make it to every. single. soccer game?? No problem. You can simply share your activities calendar with them. BOOM!

These are just a few of the ways I use mine. If you can make this a habit, it is such an easy way to level up your life. I love Google Calendar.

If you have other suggestions or ideas that you’ve used, I would love to hear it!

Please include it in the comment below.

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Kristen

Kristen is the founder and content creator at Mom Managing Chaos where she teaches busy moms how to simplify and organize their life and finances. She writes about frugal living, budgeting, productivity and organization.

5 thoughts on “Why You Need Google Calendar to Organize Your Life”

  1. Super helpful – but how do you actually enter/view/track everything in categories and tasks so it doesn’t look like a crazy rainbow?

  2. Hi Diana,
    There are multiple views (daily, monthly,etc.) So I use specific color coded categories for the things I want to track. For example: Kids Activities, Meals, Medical, Income, Expenses, For Reference (things under warranty), Maintenance (home and car).

    Even though I have many of categories, I don’t have to keep them toggled “on”. Things in “for reference” aren’t “on”. I just keep them there for record with a reminder sent when the warranty is about to expire. It’s saved on my calendar, but I don’t need to see it.

    Maintenance, I set on the calendar, but typically check at the beginning of the month to see if anything is coming up but then keep it toggled/unchecked off. You can set email reminders to be sent to you though, even if the view for that category is turned off.

    With tracking–It depends on your categories. I usually take a good look at everything at the beginning of the month, but usually keep my calendar set to the “week” view and review it multiple times a day/ week depending on whats happening. Those email reminders tho…. if it’s super important, I always email myself.

    I enter things as they come up. If my girls have swimming practice– it goes on the calendar. 1/2 days at school, goes on the Calendar. Paid for pictures? Goes under “for reference” usually with a picture or some notes with the confirmation #.

    I keep common occurring things like practices on the schedule to make sure I don’t double schedule if my brain is on a break.

    For tasks/to do lists you can also assign a date to those to make sure you don’t miss those. You can check the box to view/not view those as well. I usually keep a running list of things to do, but I don’t tend to schedule those. It’s more like “hang up new shelves”– not super time sensitive so I don’t assign a time. I just fit it in, when I get around to it.

    I only keep the categories turned on if I need them immediately. I treat my calendar as a calendar, but also a historical file, digital filing cabinet, personal assistant. If that makes sense?

    I could screen cap my calendar, but it wouldn’t really show you the depth of everything I do with it and how I do it. Maybe I’ll make a video and include it.

    It took me some time to really refine the system that works for me, but now I love it. You might want to try a few things and see what works for you?

    Let me know if you have any other questions! I absolutely love talking about Google Calendar. 😀

  3. Hi want to be come more frugal this year and start budgeting and start journaling and start saving money this year.

  4. Hello! The budgeting/ bill pay calendar is in the resource library. You can request access through the link in the menu bar and print from there. Cheers, Kristen

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