The main point of my ebook Tell Your Time is to walk you through the 4-step process I use to manage my time.
Step 4 results in a weekly schedule that accounts for all the most important things in your life. As I explained in my video last time, the idea is that you first schedule the things you absolutely don't want to fall through the cracks and then plan anything else around those things.
Among the free printables I created for use in tandem with the ebook is a very simple weekly schedule.
I have since gotten many questions asking for online tools to do the same thing.
In this video, I show you how to create your weekly schedule using Google Calendar. (I love Gmail and all the other products that come with a free Google account. You can read my email tips and find out how to get yourself a Google Account so you can use this method too.)
Can't see the video? Watch it here.
Video Notes:
- The first step is to make sure you work through Steps 1, 2 and 3 in Tell Your Time. You'll nee your Grid to create your calendar.
- Once you're logged into Google Calendar, create a new calendar by hovering over "My Calendars" in the left column and clicking the down arrow that appears. Click on "Create a new calendar."
- In the next window, name your new calendar (I named mine "Weekly Schedule") and click the "Create Calendar" button.
- Your new calendar will now show up in the left column in Calendar. Make sure it is selected (indicated by a colored box next to it). You can also hover over the name of your new calendar and a down arrow will appear next to it. Click this down arrow to get more settings and options for this particular calendar.
- Choose the Weekly view by clicking the "Week" tab at the top of the page.
- Next, look at your completed Grid. All you need to do is plug in your activities starting with your Nonnegotiable/Fixed Activites and then Nonnegotiable/Flexible (starting with Sleep!) and then on to your Negotiable activities.
- Determine the amount of time you need to block out on your calendar. Simply click and drag to highlight that block of time. You can click "Edit Event" to further customize it like making it repeat, setting reminders so you don't miss it, etc.
- Save all your events!
If you haven't done so already pick up the ebook Tell Your Time for the details.
Disclosure: There are affiliate links in this post.
Other posts in this series
- 7 Principles to Live By in 2013
- How I Deal with New Year's Resolutions
- How to Create a Weekly Schedule Using Google Calendar
- 4 Steps to Better Blogging Time Management
So helpful, Amy. Thanks! I'm doing a series on my blog this month about taking time to thoughtfully consider our lives before rushing into making resolutions we won't keep. I think I'll include this in the "step" for this week, which is "Simplify." It's an awesome tutorial on how to make use of a tool to get a hold of our time. Watching was "time" well spent.
Glad it was helpful, Julie!
I would probably die without google calendar, I have multiple calendars for different categories or areas in our lives. So very useful. I love so many of google's services!
Me too.
Awesome, I just started using Google calendar and I love it!
Very handy indeed. Plus, love the integration with all other Google products. Thanks, Alina.
I love Google Calendar! I have several personal calendars and I share one with my wife. Makes keeping track of each other's activities much easier. I also have your e-book Tell Your Time, and I can't wait to read and implement it! Thank you Amy!
This was very helpful – thank you for posting. I do have one question: Can you print your completed calendar?
I haven't used Google calendar before, but I do use the calendar app that came on my iPhone (just realized its connected to Gmail). When I opened up my Google calendar just now, all the info from my phone calendar was on there! I made some changes both on the computer calendar and on the iPhone calendar, and the changes were automatically updated in both places, so they are completely synchronized. You can access multiple calendars in both places…interesting.
Based on all the enthusiastic feedback here, I may have to try giving the Google Planner a try. I'm already using the built-in Calendar in my iPhone and am getting used to it although I still would have loved it if I can personalize the sound alert into something more attention-jacking. I read that you can share your calendar with others? If that's true, this just might work with me and my non-calendar-savvy wife.
Hi James, yes, you can definitely share calendars. My husband and I share and it's handy. To share, hover over the calendar you want to share until you see the down arrow on the right. Click the down arrow and then click the "Share this Calendar" link at the top of the page. Hope that helps!
Hi Amy,
I'm loving your tutorials! This site is amazing. I actually shared two of your posts on my blog this week here (http://mishmashmama.blogspot.com/2013/01/weekend-goodies-january-26-27.html). Thanks so much for the great info.
You're welcome. Thank YOU!
Good and extremely helpful – the idea makes total sense. I'm thinking to use it also. Thanks for the video tutorial this could be very useful to me.