Skip to main content

Shared calendars are one part of an organized family

by Douglas E. Welch, techiq@welchwrite.com
206-338-5832 Reader/Listener Line


As a parent with a school-age child, I often hear other parents bemoaning their disorganized existence. Along with the busy schedules of two working parents you might have art classes, karate classes, Little League, soccer and more. Add in more than one kid and organizing your life can quickly become a nightmare.

This is exactly why one of my most important organizing devices is a shared calendar that reflects all the activities and events for everyone in the household...and I do mean everything. If someone -- is required to be somewhere -- at sometime, it goes into the calendar. If we are given a calendar that reflects all the events for a particular activity (say, Little League), all these events immediately go into the calendar, along with notations on whether we are providing the team snack, working in the snack bar, etc. Even events that occur anytime during the day, like family birthdays, and other reminders are also included.

Here is a screen shot of my calendar for January. As you can see, I also make extensive use of color coding to tell me, at a glance, who is involved in an activity or what type of activity it is.

Welch Entourage Calendar Screenshot
Now, even as technology happy as I am, I will be the first to admit that maintaining a calendar like this doesn't take a computer, but it certainly makes it much easier. First, in my setup, events and appointments can be entered from either my computer, my wife's or even directly into my Handspring Treo PDA or cell phone and those events will appear, eventually, on all those devices in turn. For example, when I am at the dentist or doctor's office and we schedule my next appointment, I immediately enter that into my Treo. When I return home and eventually synchronize the Treo with my computer, that appointment also flows over to the other computers. It also works in the reverse direction.

Next, using a computer-based or Internet-based calendar allows you to easily add repeating and recurring events, days months and years into the future. This is what I use for family birthdays, anniversaries and holidays. Imagine only having to enter these dates once and use them for years to come. For fun, I even enter birthdays of certain ancestors, like the grandfather my son is named after, to keep that bit of history alive.

The Available Tools

There are countless tools you can use to get your calendar in order. In my personal case, I am using Microsoft Entourage, part of Microsoft Office, which also provides email, to-do lists and more. It also has a built-in sharing system, using its Projects feature that allows me to share the calendar and other items with the other computers in my office. Similar calendar applications include Apple iCal, Now-Up-To-Date & Contact, Microsoft Outlook and others.

You don't have to use a program on your computer, though. There are a number of online calendars that can provide you even more flexibility. These calendars are accessed using your web browser, which allows you to update it from anywhere you have an internet connection, possibly even your cell phone. This type of calendar includes Google Calendar, , and a host of others, usually provided in association with other web services.

Google Calender Screenshot

Google Calender Screenshot


Some of these programs and web-based calendars will also allow you to automatically include event calendars and the calendars of family and friends within your own calendar.

No matter how you build your shared family calendar, do build it – and then use it. This single tool will help to keep you and your family on-track and less stressful.

Links:

Google Calendar
Yahoo Calendar
Microsoft Office and Outlook
Apple iCal

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Tiny Wow - Tools That Solve Your Files Problem - Convert to/from many file formats [Shared]

A nice collection of quick, online tools, to convert to and from a variety of file types. Just the site to keep in mind when you need to shuffle one type data into a new system. — Douglas TinyWow & Your Privacy Don't you love finding a great online tool-set that claims to be free, let's you build and interact the way you want, only to be denied access if you don't pay for an account(or sign up for an account). Our site is free. We don't limit. We don't even take sign-ups. Might we take sign-ups one day? Sure, we probably will(but not any time soon). When we do go down that route, what we will NOT do is trick you into spending your time using our tools, only to be denied access before you can download what you have just spent your precious time creating. TinyWow is free. We don't have ads, we don't sell data. We currently have no plans to monetize. Why offer these tools for free? We operate two tech websites: Alphr & TechJunkie. We thought our use

Elsewhere Online: AT&T's Spam Filter Gets A Bit Too Aggressive

This story from TechDirt lays out yet another reason I recommend that folks DON'T use the email provided to them by their ISP. My typical recommendation right now is to get a Gmail account instead. It also points out why I want to manage all my SPAM on my end, without pre-filtering from an ISP. I will gladly manage my spam if it helps to insure that I see as many of my "real" messages as possible. Again, Gmail's tools work pretty good in this regard. Having an alternative email account also insures you will keep the same email, even if you decide to leave your current ISP. Witness all the folks holding onto AOL accounts just to keep their AOL email address. Thank goodness at least that is free now. AT&T's Spam Filter Gets A Bit Too Aggressive You can certainly understand why ISPs offer spam filters. It's a service for users who don't want to be totally bombarded with spam. But what I've never understood is that these ISPs rarely give the user a

On my iPhone…IFTTT (If This Then That) for iOS

IFTTT (If This Then That) for iOS IFTTT (If This Then That) for iOS My best description of IFTTT, both their main web site, and this new iOS app is "a scripting language for the We." It allows you to set up "recipes" that watch one particular service, like Feedly, Evernote, Gmail and more, and then take action on another service whenever a particular action occurs. I use this to automatically save my shared items from Feedly and elsewhere into an Evernote Notebook and also use it to post automatically post information on a variety of services. The iOS app adds to this functionality by allowing you to take various actions on your phone and triggering IFTTT actions whenever they occur. In the case of the iPhone, initiating actions can include adding new contacts to your iPhone, taking a new picture and more.  For more complete information on how IFFTT works, visit ifttt.com    From the iTunes App Store... " Put the internet to work for you. IFTTT lets y