The elements of any event includes the “who,” “what,” “when” and “where.” Here’s a handy tip for adding this information to your Google calendar quickly and easily.
There are actually three different ways to add events to your Google Calendar: the Create Event button, the Quick Add feature or by clicking directly on the date. In this article, I’ll beintroducing a few shortcuts to create an event by directly clicking on the dates. And yes, these work with any of the Google Calendars: Gmail, Google Enterprise, Google Apps for Education, etc. However, this does not work with the Agenda or Day views.
- Click on the blank area of the date.
- Enter your event information in the pop up box.
- Click “Create Event.”
See, couldn’t be easier. Now, here’s some additional tricks to getting more out of that pop up box.
All Day Events
For all-day events, just add the name of the event. This creates an untimed, all-day event. I use these for holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. I also use them to note when items are due such as invoices, project deliverables, project deadlines, etc.
Timed Events
You can still use the pop up box for events with a specific start and stop time, such as attending a Webinar, watching a movie or attending a meeting. When entering the event, begin with the start time followed optionally by the end time. Lastly, the type the name of the event.
Who
You can capture who your meeting is with by using “with” followed by the person’s email address. These are added automatically to the guest list. There’s also a great Labs widget that displays the email address in your calendar if you’re meeting with more than one person. But, I’ll be discussing that in another article.
Example: 7-9pm Movie with thecolonel@ky.us
Where
Simply add the location by using the “at” keyword followed by the location. This will put the location in the Where field of the details screen. The nice part about the location is theintegration of the calendar with Google Maps. Again, that will be covered in another article.
Example: 7-9pm Movie at Rave Theater with thecolonel@ky.us
Now, see for yourself and find out how these things work. Then tell me in the comments below if you were helped by this tip. Or leave any tips of your own.
For more details and even more examples, check out Google’s help page.
All Things Dave 