My Planner vs Google Calendar.

For as long as I can remember I have been attached to my personal planner.  Whether it be the one I got from school and had to fill out for homework in grade 1, the free planners passed out throughout undergrad, all the way to the fancy ones I have bought since then.  I have always had one that lives with me wherever I go, and thus my life has been, in my mind, organized.  Along the way I have tried other options like outlook, but I soon realized my laptop didn’t travel with me, I used the calendar reminder on my phone but that started beeping at me at random times when I least expected it…..so I eventually turned back to my trusty planner!

As I said I am not one to shy away from trying new things and recently became a user of Google Calendar.  All I can say is so far so good!  The most important aspects of that have appealed to me are that it meets my need to be organized in my life and it hasn’t been hard to use or learn.

Playing around with it I have found the following things I love and don’t love so much about it:

There are many things I love about Google Calendar so I have chosen the few that stood out for me!

• Multiple Calendars: Google Calendar allows you to create multiple calendars.  For example I can have a private calendar, a calendar open to my family and friends, and a calendar for work events that I can share with colleagues….now here’s the best part when I look at my calendar I can see all of them melded into one, each event from individual calendars is color coded so I know which one its coming from … LOVE IT!
• Drag & Drop Events:  If you need to change an event on a particular day to another day you can simply drag and drop it into the new day instead of having to delete it from one and re-enter the info into another date.
• Other Calendars:  There are several built in calendars that you can add into your own calendar.  I personally added the holidays calendar for the US, Canada, Hong Kong and India so I can keep track of what’s going on around the world and make sure I send out wishes to my family that celebrate those events.  They also have other fun calendars like dates for movie releases, events in certain cities, sporting events and so on.  This definitely rocks!
• Data Never Lost:  The best part is your information is always there, even if your laptop dies, or your power goes out, you always have access to this calendar wherever you can find an internet connection!

There are also a few things that I am used to that didn’t make the cut on Google Calendar so I have chosen the few that stood out for me!

• No Offline Access:  I am so used to having access to my planner at all times of the day anywhere I am (if I don’t forget it at home that is) so not having access to it when I don’t have access to the internet is a little bit of a bother at times, but on the bright side I can always print my Google Calendar and take it with me if I need to….or as my husband has been trying to get me do for as long as I can remember I can buy a blackberry.
• No Year Tab: When looking at the calendar you can only see it by week or month and not by year.
• No Check Box: There is no way I can check off the events I have completed in a day, that would be helpful.

Overall I think this is definitely something that has been well appreciated by the Google Apps audience.  It is very user friendly and allows every type of user to make use of it.  It’s interactive capabilities allowing groups of people to have access to a calendar is also a great asset, my husband and I are using it so we can see what’s going on with both of us before planning something new when we don’t have the time or access to discuss it first.  I am thinking of taking this one step further and making a calendar for my family to synch in on.

Another fun find on the Google Calendar that I stumbled upon was someone talking about synching your facebook events to your Google Calendar, this is definately something I am going to keep my eyes peeled for, especially having many group and personal events it would be great to have them organized in one spot with a click of a button and then pick and chose what you are able to do!

As you can see I am having a little too much fun with this calendar and obviously won’t be parting with it anytime in the near future!