As a candidate for busiest person of the year award, I’m a BIG fan of automation. If there is something that can make my life easier, faster, or more efficient, I want to know about it!
I have three young children, a business, and a messy house, and I ran out of room in my brain a loooooong time ago! LOL One of the things I LOVE is the way my calendar is set up – I use iCal, and it syncs with Google Calendar, and my phone.
If I make an appointment on my computer, it shows up on my phone. If I make an appointment on my phone, it shows up on my computer. AND it’s all linked in to Timetrade (an online calendaring program), so if I schedule something, Timetrade removes my availability from my online appointment scheduler. I don’t have to think about my calendar at ALL. It’s…awesome.
Anyhoo, lots of people ask me about managing and sharing calendars and appointments, so I created a step-by-step list of instructions for how to sync Google with iCal.
If you have a VA – THIS is how you would share your calendar with her (yea yea or him…equality and all hehe)!
Syncing your desktop calendar with Google basically has two steps:
1. Actually SYNCING your calendar(s) on Google with your computer
2. MOVING your pre-existing appointments to your new, synced calendar
When these steps are done, you can then sync your smart phone with Google, and then appointments will go from your phone, to Google, to your desktop (and from your desktop, to Google, to your phone.
If you want to further eliminate calendar and scheduling headaches, I highly recommend Timetrade.com (formerly Timedriver.com). It is, hands down, the BEST scheduler out there. It also syncs with Google. SO – no more “Are you free now? Are you free now?” back and forth emails. Someone books an appointment – it goes from Timetrade to Google, to your phone, to your calendar… Boom, done.
Automation = happiness.
DOWNLOAD THE INSTRUCTIONS HERE
P.S. – For anyone who uses Outlook on a Windows machine, your instructions for syncing can be found here: http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=89955
P.P.S. – (Another thing I did to make my life easier, was to marry a genius computer guy. That saves me TONS of time. But for those of you with just “regular” husbands, just start with the handout.)