We live in a world of technology. It is ever changing, growing, developing and expanding. You can embrace it or reject it; use it or fight it.

I choose to use it to help me simplify and balance my life. It hasn’t come without practice though. Some technology is just so cool it can take over your life and time throwing a real wrench in your delicate balance. But with a little practice and THE RIGHT tools it can be very helpful.

Calendaring Tip: online calendar tools

Yesterday I dangled today’s post at the end of my organizing tip. It was related, but worthy of it’s own category and post, besides that the organization tip was long winded enough!

Everyone does (or should) realize by this point in their lives the value of the calendar. Without that nifty device we could still be sitting around open pit fires wearing animal skins for clothing. Because we have evolved, we’ve learned how important understanding time is and thus how important the calendar is. But it’s more than that, it’s also a device that can help us master our own time management.

Years ago I read a great tip about using one master calendar in a visible place for the entire family. Each family member had their own assigned color to add to it. This helped avoid double booking times and dates as well as created a wonderful visual for everyone to *see* when things were getting too crazy and adjustments were needed. I adopted the suggestion readily and kept a white dry-erase calendar in my kitchen. It worked great.

Today I can do the same thing with less effort and more efficiency. It’s the beauty of Goggle’s Calendar. I have five calendars that work together: mine, my husband’s, our combined/immediate family, my family’s and his family’s. Each calendar is color coded so viewing it on one shows which event is related to which group.

Here’s what I love about it:

• It’s simple - Google is the master of simplicity; it’s why their search engine is so successful - a plain white page with a search box. Beyond that they’ve integrated all the same successful aspects into all their tools.
• It’s powerful - I can access it anywhere and it’s still secure
• I can add and edit quickly and easily
• I can create different calendars for different groups but view them all at once if I want
• I can control user/viewer settings for calendars I choose to share allowing some to add to it or just view it
• I can see my husband’s calendar and he can see mine
• I can control all my “elephant” calendars separately, yet combined
• I don’t have to search for a pen, pencil and calendar when I’m on the phone and a schedule question comes up

If your one of those that lives in paranoia of things “disappearing” on your computer or online then just print it out and keep a copy with you for the day/week/month - whatever suits you. And if you don’t use Google yet you should. I will never go back to the limits of desktop software for my e-mail, contact database and calendaring. Google rocks!

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