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  • Today we are talking about Google Calendar

  • because I've been getting a lot of questions

  • about how I use my calendar personally

  • and Google calendar has been my weapon-of-choice

  • for the past five, six, seven years almost to this point.

  • So, today in this video, we're gonna go through

  • how I use Google Calendar, some of the tips and tricks I use

  • both on desktop and mobile, how I used it as a student

  • versus now as an incredibly professional businessman,

  • and hey, if you guys use a different calendar,

  • most of the stuff is going to apply, not all of it,

  • but for the vast majority of it, it's gonna apply to

  • any calendar you use, so iCal, Outlook Calendar,

  • I don't know, like a stone tablet on the ground,

  • that one's gonna be a bit of a stretch, but this will apply

  • to almost any system for the most part.

  • The first thing I need to stress here is that

  • Google Calendar is part of what I call

  • my quick capture system.

  • Now, I'm gonna talk about this concept a little bit more

  • in a future video, but essentially, the gist of it

  • is that quick capture means you want to get ideas

  • of any kind out of your head as immediately as possible

  • and into a system that you trust, one that has context,

  • one that's organized, and one that will either notify you

  • when you need to know about it again in the future

  • or that you trust yourself to check regularly.

  • So, with that being said, we're gonna get into

  • how I specifically use Google Calendar in my daily life

  • and I need to split this explanation in two

  • because the way I use it today is very different

  • than how I used it as a student.

  • As a student, I had my calendar split into multiple

  • different calendars because the concept essentially for me

  • was to split my life into different components

  • and then be able to look at each component individually.

  • So, I had specific calendars for classes, for work,

  • for on-campus events, I also had one for other stuff,

  • just kind of things that didn't fit, and I also had

  • a professor office hours calendar.

  • By the way guys, if I sound like a frog right now,

  • it's because I'm sick, sorry.

  • One last thing about how I used my calendar as a student

  • is that at the beginning of every semester,

  • I would put in all the important dates right away

  • so like the date when I needed to sign up for classes

  • for the next semester, that would go in right away,

  • finals week would go in there, and that way,

  • I knew it was all set up at the beginning of the semester.

  • I wouldn't have to be worrying about when do I sign

  • up for classes, when do I start studying for finals,

  • it's all set up initially and then I can just react to it

  • as it comes up on a week-to-week basis.

  • So, that brings us to today where I use my calendar

  • in a very different manner and that's because I'm no longer

  • a student and my time isn't dominated mostly by events.

  • I'm a business owner and most of my time

  • is kind of free form, I can choose to work on whatever

  • I want to work on at any time as long as it gets done.

  • I would say probably about 90% of my time is like that.

  • The other 10% is scheduled meetings for the most part

  • because as a podcaster, I'm often interviewing people

  • or I'm being on other people's shows.

  • The other main use is for travel since I'm going to

  • schools to speak sometimes, or I go to conferences

  • that are in different cities and different states,

  • I'm often traveling and when I travel,

  • I create all day events in the calendar so they're not

  • blocking up the hourly slots and that way I just know oh,

  • I'm in Denver these days, I'm in New York City these days.

  • The last main thing I use my calendar for these days

  • is for exercise because a lot of my exercise is actually

  • event-driven like my yoga class is 6:30pm on Thursdays,

  • so I gotta be there on time and for ice skating practice,

  • it's only a very limited window of time every day

  • that I can do it, so I just schedule it on the calendar

  • and then because I'm a completionist,

  • I put my gym time on there as well.

  • So, with those explanations out of the way,

  • I've got a few more things to talk about,

  • first of which is mobile.

  • Now, I used to use Sunrise Calendar on my iPhone

  • to manage Google Calendar because it was free

  • and it was beautiful and at the time,

  • the Google Calendar app kind of stunk in my opinion.

  • That is not the case anymore, I think the

  • Google Calendar app is pretty good, however,

  • I don't use it because now I use an app called Fantastical.

  • The reasons I use Fantastical is number one, it is the best

  • calendar app that I have found for use on the Apple Watch

  • right now because it's the one that has glances,

  • so I can just easily look at the watch, swipe up and see

  • what my next event is, and it also has absolutely

  • fantastic natural language processing which means

  • if I use voice dictation to create an event which is a

  • really seamless, frictionless way to get it out of my brain

  • and into my phone, then it will intelligently pick out

  • the parts of the event that need

  • to be put in different fields.

  • And that brings me to the last thing we need to talk about

  • in this video which is scheduling stuff because

  • email tag is the worst, trust me, I've got like

  • 50 message-long threads from a few years ago

  • where I'm trying to be like yeah, I'm available this day,

  • oh you're not available that day, blah, blah, blah.

  • You can use technology to make this much, much simpler.

  • Now, the app that I use on a regular basis is called

  • Calendly and this is an app that lets you define

  • certain dates and times on your weekly schedule

  • when people can basically pencil in their

  • own appointments with you and this is really, really useful

  • for people like me who are podcasters and have to

  • schedule interviews a lot, or maybe people like tutors,

  • anyone who has to open up big amounts of their schedule

  • in limited windows to let people basically pencil in

  • their own appointments, but I don't think it's super

  • useful for students because you guys usually have a lot

  • of your schedule already spoken for by classes

  • and you're generally just trying to schedule things like

  • group project work time.

  • Now, Google Calendar has their own find-a-time feature,

  • but what I found is most students don't have their

  • calendar game on lock, so you're gonna be like

  • the only person who has everything really nicely scheduled

  • and everyone is gonna be like yeah, I don't know

  • what I'm doing next Tuesday.

  • So, Doodle is what I recommend for you guys

  • because Doodle basically lets you define a date range

  • and then everyone can vote on the times that work for them

  • and you can easily see the column

  • where everyone's available.

  • So, that about does it for this video.

  • Now, if you've been paying attention, you are now a

  • scheduling ninja though, do not put that in your Twitter bio

  • or I will find you, and if you guys have extra tips about

  • how to use your calendar that I didn't cover here,

  • I would love to hear them otherwise,

  • thank you so much for watching.

  • If you enjoyed this video and you found it useful,

  • give it a like to support this channel

  • and if you want to get new tips on being a more

  • effective student every single week, you can click

  • that big red subscribe button right down there.

  • Also, I wrote a free book on how to earn better grades,

  • so if you want to get a copy of that, you can click the book

  • and I'll send one to you.

  • And in last week's video, we talked about skipping classes

  • and whether or not it's worth it, so check it out

  • if you missed it, also if you want to get the full article

  • for this video along with links to all the resources

  • we talked about, click the orange button right there.

  • And lastly, if you want to connect,

  • I'm TomFrankly on Instagram and Twitter

  • or you can leave a comment down below.

  • Thanks for watching.

Today we are talking about Google Calendar

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