Organize Your Life: How to Plan Your Week With Google Calendar

Most people could stand to be more organized, especially those of us working from home and/or running a business. Luckily, we all have access to Google Calendar. It’s free, can sync with other calendars and productivity apps like Trello or Notion, and is relatively easy to use. Go beyond handwritten to-do lists; here's how to use Google Calendar to plan your week.

Many people use calendar apps to keep track of appointments or Zoom calls. That’s fine, but there’s much more you can do. Using Google's Calendar app as a planner, you can:

Make digital to-do lists

Create events and tasks

Color-code items

Set up reminders

You can also add extensions to expand its functionality. Some are aesthetic, like the ones that let you set a background image or pick colors beyond the standard ones Google provides for color coding. Others can integrate with video-conferencing apps like Join.me and BlueJeans.

Before creating your schedule, ask yourself what you usually do. It sounds simple, but writing down regular tasks and important items, such as meetings, will help you get a better sense of how to manage your time. You can start by creating a list of to-dos.

Katrina Oko-Odoi, Content Marketing Manager for CRM firm Copper, recommends that people "think in both the long and short term. Record projects or tasks that you'll need to complete, even if you don't need to get them done today or even this week. For larger projects, try to break them down into actionable steps. This will make it easier to plot time on your calendar.”

You can make your list using other productivity apps linked to Google Calendar, or just use Google Tasks to keep it simple. Tasks is accessible from any Google Workspace app, such as Drive, Calendar, or Keep. Click the blue checkmark icon on the right-hand menu bar to access it.

Use Tasks to jot down a list of the things you know you’ll have to do throughout the week in no particular order. Once you’re done, click and drag them as new tasks to specific days on your calendar. For example, if you know you want to block time for exercise during the week, you can create a task called “exercise,” then drag it to the desired day and time.

Group tasks by list so it’s easier to keep track of them. You could, for example, make a list called “chores” where you keep regular household to-dos, or “life admin” for things like checking email and scheduling appointments. If you want the freedom to add and organize tasks from anywhere in your browser, check out extensions like the Tasksboard app for Chrome.

Google Calendar also allows you to create separate calendars for different aspects of your life. You can have a calendar for work and one for personal events, populated with tasks relevant to each category. If you’re using your calendar mainly for work, try making a calendar for important meetings, one for project deadlines, and another for work events to keep your work life more organized. Specific calendars can be toggled on and off from the left-hand sidebar.

To make a new calendar, click the plus (+) icon next to the Other Calendar section in the lower-left corner, then choose Create new calendar. Add a name for the calendar, write a description, and assign an owner (if multiple people are using the same Google account).

Adding new tasks, events, or reminders to your calendar is easy. Click and drag on the specific day you’d like to add something and a new box will pop up where you can fill in the specifics. Or, just click the Create button next to the big plus sign in the upper-left corner.

If you want to set a task to repeat, click the time for that task where it says Does not repeat. A drop-down menu will open with a range of options you can choose to repeat the task. Depending on the to-do item, you can set it to repeat daily, weekly, monthly, or on a specific day of the week. You could set a time for your exercise task, and it would show up every week going forward.

Color-coding your schedule might seem unnecessary, but it helps keep things straight so it doesn’t get overwhelming. When you create a new task or event, you’ll see a circular color icon that defaults to blue. Click it to change the color that shows up on your calendar.

Don’t like the options you see? If you have the extension for additional colors installed, click the plus icon in the color box and insert a hex value from Google’s color picker.

When filling in your schedule, Oko-Odoi recommends adding “non-negotiables” first. These are appointments, meetings, and other events that have to take place on a specific time and day. You can then fill in other important points from your to-do list, pulling them from Google Tasks or any other connected app or extension.

Start with the most important items, blocking off enough time so you don’t rush or get overwhelmed with too many tasks in one day. If you’re working on something particularly dense, try to break it up into time blocks over several days. Experiment with both types of time blocking to get a feel for what you like, then run with it.

Productivity YouTuber Jules Acree, for example, has certain days marked off as “potato days” on her calendar while others are labeled “creation days.” On “potato days,” Acree handles editing tasks and other to-dos that don’t require being on camera or looking fancy. Creation days are for filming videos and/or taking meetings.

To create labels like she has for each day, simply add an event that lasts the entire day to your calendar and label it as such. Acree also color codes deadlines in bright yellow so they stand out—which is particularly useful for freelancers assigning their own work schedule. If you want to see her break down her organizational philosophy further, check out the video above.

Make sure you build in time for breaks. Working for five hours straight might look fine on paper, but you’ll be drained at the end of it if you don't take a moment to step back every so often. The reminders function comes in handy here—if you’re the kind of person who gets sucked into your work, try scheduling stretch break reminders throughout your work day.

Schedule blocks of time for calls, including a few minutes to prep beforehand. That way you can decompress between tasks and fully focus when it’s time to jump on that Zoom call. You can call these blocks something like “prep time” and color code them differently than the rest.

Lastly, sometimes things come up out of nowhere. When that happens, you need time to deal with it. Try to set aside time just in case you get an unexpected call or have to jump to an unplanned task. Do that, and you’ll still have the time and space to get your main to-dos in the can.

The more you use Google Calendar, the easier it becomes to organize your week. Learning the ins and outs, such as hot key shortcuts, will help make planning your days intuitive and simple. To recap, the basics of planning your week with Google Calendar are:

List out your tasks and figure out which ones are recurring

Categorize those tasks

Create calendars for those categories

Fill in those calendars with your tasks

Color code items by category

If you aren’t sure this system is for you, try it for a week to find out. Pull up Google Calendar, switch to week view, and skip to the following week. You may also need some extra help eliminating distractions, avoiding procrastination, and preventing fatigue to keep up productivity.

Fill in your planned weekly schedule and see how easy it is to stick to your plan. For more, check out these Calendar tips and Google's own guide.

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