Running a small business can be hectic, but the right tools make it easier. Google Calendar is a powerful tool that helps you stay organized and work more efficiently. In this article, you’ll explore how its features can simplify your business life and help you plan for 2025 to be a year of success and growth!
Goals are like destinations, and plans are the paths to get there. Setting clear goals and plans for your business each year is key to success. A digital calendar like Google Calendar is the perfect way to track and manage them.
Plan Your 2025 with a Digital Calendar
When you add something to a calendar, it’s more likely to get done. Digital calendars help you meet deadlines, stay on top of priorities, avoid scheduling conflicts, and collaborate easily with your team.
What about paper planners? While it’s a personal preference, digital calendars have some clear advantages. They’re accessible anywhere since we always have our phones. They’re harder to lose and much easier to carry around.
There are many great calendar tools, but my favorite is Google Calendar. I use it daily for business and personal tasks, and it’s been essential in helping me build a successful online business.
A Word About Google
I don’t love Google as much as I used to. They’ve gotten so big, and it feels like they have too much control. That said, Google Calendar is still the best tool for growing your business.
For example, I used to rely on Outlook Calendar in my business, but it wasn’t easy to share or give my assistant access to specific parts of it. When I switched to Google Calendar, everything became much easier. Now, I can share specific calendars with the right assistants based on what they need to see. Plus, they can log in and access important information from anywhere in the world.
10 Favorite Features of Google Calendar
1) Set Up Different Calendars
Google Calendar is like a super calendar where you can keep track of all your important dates. You can create different calendars for different parts of your business, such as your editorial calendar, blog post calendar, appointments, online training and events, project deadlines, etc. Turning on your different calendars gives you a good picture of your day, week, or month.
2) Share Calendars with Others
Google Calendar lets you share your calendars with your team. This is handy because everyone can see availability, events, and deadlines. It’s an easy way to communicate plans to others – team members can check the calendar to see what’s happening.
3) Set Auto Reminders
Google Calendar can remind you about important events, like meetings or deadlines. This helps you prioritize activities and ensures you’re always on top of what needs to be done.
4) Integrates with Other Tools
Google Calendar can sync with other tools, such as appointment schedulers, video call apps, and project management tools. This makes your work smoother; for example, you can start a video call from your calendar.
5) Appointment Scheduling
Appointment scheduling allows you to manage your availability. Clients can book time with you directly on Google Calendar through your personal booking page. You can also easily share booking pages for important meetings. This is a feature of Google Workspace, which is a paid plan. However, if you book many clients online, it may be with the $9/month to subscribe.
6) Embed Your Calendar
To share your availability on your website, embed your calendar. Follow these steps:
1. Go to Settings.
2. Scroll down to Integrate calendar.
3. Copy your calendar’s embed code.
By embedding your calendar, you can place it directly on your website. This is helpful when your business is very appointment or event-driven. Here’s an example of how I embedded the webinar calendar on the Website Creation Workshop™ Club page:
7) Syncs to Other Devices
You can use the Google Calendar app on your mobile device to stay connected to your schedule while on the go. You can access and update your calendar from anywhere, so you’re always in the loop, even if you’re not at your desk.
8) Color Code Your Calendars
Balancing the different parts of your life can be challenging. Like most people, you may struggle with various projects. Relying on one calendar makes life cluttered and unmanageable. Fortunately, Google Calendar lets you color-code each area of your life. You could use red for accounting tasks, blue for marketing tasks, green for meetings, purple for your personal calendar, etc.
Color coding allows you to see an overview of your schedule easily. This helps you identify your daily, weekly, or monthly plans. In addition, color-coding different calendars helps you understand how you spend time and which areas overlap.
9) Set up Recurring Events
I use this feature frequently in my business. For example, we have a team meeting on Mondays, and I send out a blog post on Wednesdays. Do you have events or tasks that occur simultaneously every day, week, month, quarter, or year? If so, you can make them recurring tasks when you create them for the first time.
10) Customize Your View
There are multiple ways that you can customize your Google Calendar view. In addition to changing the colors, you can view your calendar by Day, Week, Month, Year, Schedule, and four days. Customization is a simple way to avoid distractions. If you choose the day view, you’ll only see what’s scheduled for that day. It won’t show your plans for the week or month.
Plus, in the settings area, you can set the start day of your week and enable the world clock. This latter feature will help you plan if you work with clients or customers in other parts of the country or world.
Free Google Calendar Video Training
Watch this detailed video training for specific steps to using Google Calendar. You’ll learn how to:
- Set Up Your Google Account.
- Create Events in Google Calendar
- Invite Others to Attend an Event
- Create Different Google Calendars
- Color Code Your Google Calendars
- View some (or all) of your Calendars
- Share Calendars with Other People
(Go here to get a full list of what is included in this Google Calendar training video)
Start Planning Your 2025 with Google Calendar
Running a small business is a juggling act, but you can make it easier with the right resources. Google’s free tools for businesses continue to impress me. I use Google Calendar daily, and it’s helped me organize and grow my business. The calendar is versatile and has many features to streamline your business.
These are just 10 of the features of Google Calendar I use the most. You may find many other aspects helpful, and I’d love to hear about them!
The video I shared is from training I have in my Website Marketing Workshop. If you have a WordPress website already and want to be part of my Marketing Workshop, go here to learn more: https://www.websitemarketingworkshop.com/
