Moxie Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 I'm thinking of switching from pen-and-paper calendar (my personal choice) to Google Calendar. My phone is always with me and my DH would have access at work. Any pros or cons I should know of? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
athena1277 Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 Pros: When you are at the doctor and need to make a follow-up appt, you can quickly see what days will work best for you. You can also enter the appt right then before you forget. Reminders are great too. I set up e-mail reminders for a few days before an event so that I can plan a few days out. Cons: For some reason I can't get the alerts on my iPhone to work just right. No matter what I set it for, it will tell me about an event early. :confused: It will tell me when I'm already at an event that I need to be there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catz Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 There are no cons in our world, only pros. We switched over a few years ago and it's been great. My DH can update at work and we both have apps on our iPads that will sync with it. We set up calendars for all 4 of us and then for more general things, homeschooling events, etc. We probably have 8 calendars. We even have some local museums/non-profits that's have gone to google calendar so we can see their events on our calendar too. We LOVE reminder e-mails too about appointments, birthdays, etc. The only con I can think of is when people ask me in person about a date and I do not have my iPad with I can't check it on the fly. I do tend to be a person that usually says "let me get back to you" anyway, because our calendar does tend to be very full and I can't always remember what's what. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jujsky Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 There are no cons in our world, only pros. We switched over a few years ago and it's been great. My DH can update at work and we both have apps on our iPads that will sync with it. We set up calendars for all 4 of us and then for more general things, homeschooling events, etc. We probably have 8 calendars. We even have some local museums/non-profits that's have gone to google calendar so we can see their events on our calendar too. We LOVE reminder e-mails too about appointments, birthdays, etc. The only con I can think of is when people ask me in person about a date and I do not have my iPad with I can't check it on the fly. I do tend to be a person that usually says "let me get back to you" anyway, because our calendar does tend to be very full and I can't always remember what's what. I don't set separate calendars for the kids, but I can go into any block of time I set for one of their activities and change the colors (yellow for DD, orange for DS, gray for activities they do together, purple for me). My calendar and DH's calendar are linked. It's very convenient. My favorite feature is scheduling repeating activities. You set and schedule it ONCE instead of writing it on the calendar 60 million times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zillymom Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 My favorite feature is scheduling repeating activities. You set and schedule it ONCE instead of writing it on the calendar 60 million times. This is my favorite feature, too. Love that I can do this whether I'm creating the event from my phone, the computer, my Nook... and it syncs across all devices. No cons here, I love Google Calendar. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErinE Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 I love Google Calendar. DH and I share editing duties. I create separate calendars for the family, household tasks, birthdays, and work. For the family calendar, I start the the appointment label with the person's name. So for a doctor's appointment for my son, I type in: "DS: Dr. Smith Appointment." If it's a family event, I type in: "Family: Picnic at Park." My phone has an Android operating system so I have no problems with the mobile apps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milovany Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 (edited) I'm thinking of switching from pen-and-paper calendar (my personal choice) to Google Calendar. My phone is always with me and my DH would have access at work. Any pros or cons I should know of? For background, I use my calendar all throughout the day when school is in session, because I work online from home based on the schoolyear, and I use the online calendar to keep me where I need to be (online) throughout the day. It's essential that I have a good calendar program to use. I tried a few different ones. While Google has a great calendar feature (probably the best I tried), a big CON for me while using Google was their privacy policies. When you have a google account, you are automatically signed up for other accounts too (namely, youtube and Picasa, to start). And there was some other very negative stuff I read about in an objective news article; things related to how they use tracking and information with advertising and other sites. Google stinks when it comes to privacy, and with many of the issues there's no setting to fix to change the privacy; it just is what it is. So, I looked around and about four months ago I switched to live.com and have been using that calendar now ever since (live is part of the Hotmail system). It's worked great and I've had no issues with functionality. I use it both on my laptop and on my Windows phone. The only negatives I've experienced (and both are very specific to the way I use the calendar for my business online) are 1) that it doesn't have the line going across the weekly view to show you what the exact time of day is (where you are in the day's schedule), which I had appreciated about the Google calendar because of the way I use the calendar (constant checking in to see where I need to go next), and 2) that when you put in a start time of say 9:43 and an end time of 10:51, it doesn't show that as precisely as Google; it rounds to the quarter hour visually (to make up for it, I've put the starting/ending times in the name of the event so I can see them at a glance; this won't be an issue for the regular user though), but both of these are so very minor. On the plus side, it has all the bells and whistles, including being able to add repeating events (and being able to edit either all the events at once or one of the repeating events by itself). You can also add different color-coded calendars for different people/things just like with Google (I have a work one, a personal one, a church one, and I think one more that I rarely use). You can add notes and to-do lists, and you can have alerts sent out as needed. It's a great program. HTH! Edited June 27, 2012 by milovaný Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elcmum Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 I love it, honestly. I refer to it as my brain. I have a different calendar for each kid and can see on my 'main' calendar. Each of my children have different extracurricular activities, and this allows me to just look and focus on their individual calendar ("okay, DS has swimming on XX -- this means he can't go to YY") or compare two calendars against each other ("yep, DD14's recital changed to a different day -- I'm now available to take DD12 to the dentist"). I probably make this more confusing than it should be, but if it involves me and being a taxi driver, I copy those to my calendar so I'm not double-booked when it comes to driving duties. The other benefit is that DD14 and DD12 now have access to their respective calendars. They use theirs to see when they are available or use as check-step reminders for projects, or if they have appointments come up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmoira Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 I don't think I could function without Google Calendar. I'd previously tried to keep everything in my head and on a wall calendar, but this became impossible after kids. I cannot think of a con, other than I don't like the way tasks are handled. However, Astrid (the task manager on my phone) integrates just fine with Google Calendar, so I see my upcoming tasks as well as the regular calendar entries. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EducationX2 Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 I tried using Google calendar. I really liked it too. I thought it was set up well, and easy to use.... but, it just didn't work for me. I guess I'm just a pen and paper person. I love my old fashioned, spiral-bound planner. Even though I'm surgically attached to my phone and on my computer multiple times a day :lol:, for some reason I just never remembered to use the google calendar like I use my written planner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LaxMom Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 (edited) I don't think I could function without Google Calendar. I'd previously tried to keep everything in my head and on a wall calendar, but this became impossible after kids. I cannot think of a con, other than I don't like the way tasks are handled. However, Astrid (the task manager on my phone) integrates just fine with Google Calendar, so I see my upcoming tasks as well as the regular calendar entries. I can't think of any cons, either. My husband and I have access to each other's calendars, but keep separate ones so we're not reminded of eah other's stuff -i.e. I do not need a text reminder an hour before he's due at work, and vice versa. It syncs with iCal on my phone just fine, though my phone takes things I have a text reminder for and converts the reminder to its default: 15 minutes. That works for me because I get a text message an hour before I need to get to work, and a 15 minute warning, which prompts me to leave if I haven't already. I use the GooCal app to view other calendars and my native calendar to look at just mine, just to streamline. I can't say I find the "other accounts" thing troubling at all. Picasa, blogger and the like are all Google widgets. It's not like they're sharing my information with another company and creating an account; they are all just tools I can use under my Google account if I want to. There are NO ads in my gmail or calendar screens. Edited June 27, 2012 by MyCrazyHouse Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngieW in Texas Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 No cons. Google calendar is how I end up managing to get where I need to be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melbotoast Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 I used a small planner for years and it worked great, but now that I have a smart phone I really like using Google Calendar, because it goes with me everywhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
navywife Posted June 28, 2012 Share Posted June 28, 2012 Google calendar family here, too. I run many various calendars ...homeschool, possible to-dos, preschooler's happenings, hubby's schedule (military), birthdays, holidays, etc. I happily sync to my android based phone as well as my iPad. I'm very much looking forward to the upcoming sync feature with The Well Planned Day, though it isn't a deal breaker for me any longer like I thought it might be. I also have DD15's personal calendar and the homeschool calendar running as a widget on her iGoogle PC desktop. She likes this as it is the home screen when she gets online each day. Happy with Google Calendar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angela in ohio Posted June 28, 2012 Share Posted June 28, 2012 I LOVE Google calendar. I sent links to dh, dm, and dds. I have a family one tha tI hsare, and then I have one of my own that I manage my own time on. I also volunteered to set them up for each of dc's activities (Scouts, etc.) so that I can just add them and share them. Each dd has one, too. I have an Android, so it loves Google Calendar, and I am never without my calendar. It helps me keep records, too. I put in any home repairs, charitable expenses, dc's volunteer hours, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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