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Whether you use Apple's own Calendar app or a powerful third-party alternative, you can better organize your work by using multiple calendars. Here's why, when and how to do it.
If you deliberately get confused in the terminology, then you can't think of anything better than the word “calendar”. The word “calendar” seems so simple, but it's used in many different ways.
That's enough, so it's also a reason why new Mac and iOS users might not get the most out of the Calendar app.
“Calendar” refers to the application you use to add events and see what day of the week December 15 falls on. But it also means those events, it means the data that you put into the application.
Add in the fact that you can have several different sets of data, and each set is also called a calendar, and it's perhaps unsurprising that people give up.
In addition, not only the name can be confusing. You can easily miss out on events or double-book yourself if you're not careful about how you use multiple calendars.
That said, depending on what you do for a living, and depending on your overall work-life balance, having multiple calendars is a blessing.
What do you use multiple calendars for
< p>Simply due to the sheer volume of events such as appointments, chances are your calendar is full of work details. But it will also be your partner's birthday, if you have one, or a dentist appointment. And that's okay.
But many work meetings are repeated and continue even when you are away on vacation. Sitting there by the pool, it's a little less fun to check which night you have theater tickets for when you're constantly reminded of these appointments.
So, you can have a work calendar and a home one. Save your appointments to your work calendar, and then turn that calendar off when you're away or just on vacation.
After that, you will see only the home calendar with appointments and nothing else.
Then, when you get back to the office, turn on your Work calendar, turn off your Home calendar, and focus. You don't need to know you have a pottery class next Tuesday night, not when you're at work trying to make an appointment.
Creating a new calendar on Mac
How to use multiple calendars
Every calendar app allows you to do this by having multiple calendars and turning them on and off. Every calendar app actually goes a little further and allows you to create calendar sets.
Let's say you run the baseball team in your local church. You can have all games in your own sports calendar.
During work hours, you don't have time to think about it, but on weekends, you might have one set that has both Sport and Home. With one click, you see only what you need, not what you don't need.
However, everything revolves around having multiple calendars, and all such apps do it in much the same way as Apple's own Calendars app.
How to add a new Calendar on Mac
- Open Apple Calendar
- Select File, New Calendar
- If a pop-up appears, select iCloud
- When the new calendar appears in the list on the left, give it a name
You get a popup that includes iCloud if you have multiple email and calendar accounts for your clients. If you don't have multiple accounts, or if you're using certain third-party apps, you might be offered the option On My Mac or iCloud.
However, it is better to choose iCloud, because then the new calendar will definitely be on all your devices.
How to create a new one calendar on iPhone or iPad
- Open the Calendar app
- Tap Calendars at the bottom of the screen
- Tap Add Calendar
- In the pop-up window that appears, select Add Calendar
- Name the new calendar
- Select a color and, if you have multiple accounts, select one)
- Press Done
again
On a Mac, now that you've named the new calendar, it's also selected . So if you add a new event, it will be assigned to that new calendar.
For some reason, the iPhone is different. You are not going to automatically add a new event to the newly selected calendar.
It's a shame because right now when you first set up one of these calendars and you do it because you need to enter an event. But if you have at least one extra calendar, you must be careful to enter events into the correct one.
Create a new calendar on iPhone
By default, any event you add to your month will appear on the calendar you select in your calendar list . If you don't see the list, select View, Show Calendar List.
The currently selected calendar will be highlighted. It will also have a color and when you add a new event you will see the same color in the drop down menu in the top right corner.
If you have Home Calendar selected and you create a new event, it will go to Home Calendar — if you don't stop it. To stop this, click on the colored icon in the top right corner and you will get a popup list of calendars.
Select the calendar where you want to place the new event and you're done. Later, if you change your mind, you can return to the event and switch to a different calendar.
When not to use multiple calendars
< p>It's Tuesday at noon, and the client you arranged to meet has been delayed at the airport, instead they want to meet tonight. You can look at your calendar, see that nothing is scheduled for tonight, and go along with it.But you only showed the work calendar, not the home calendar. And now, maybe you'd skip your pottery class to see a client, but you didn't even know you were doing it.
Decades after the invention of the first calendar apps, we still have one major problem. If you've already scheduled pottery on Tuesdays from 7pm to 9pm, and then scheduled a client meeting from 7pm to 9pm on a different calendar, no calendar app for Mac or iOS will stop you.
They will all show you two events checked at the same time — if these events are in the same calendar or both calendars are displayed.
If you risk doing this, you really need to have Apple's Calendar app showing you both — or all – from your calendars. But in this case, the whole purpose of having multiple calendars falls apart.
You can switch an event from one calendar to another
Things you can do
Third-party calendar apps have features that can sometimes help you avoid duplication or double bookings like this. For example, Fantastical has a feature that allows you to create extra hours when you can meet with clients.
Fantastical calls these openings and requires you to select your home and work calendars first. Then he will not make an appointment that contradicts anything on these matters.
Then Outlook 365 has many calendar features, including the ability to mark this pottery class as “private”. Two hours show up as your unavailable when your team is watching, and Outlook's automatic meeting scheduling won't create anything to contradict that.
But for most Mac users, in most cases, the way to avoid double bookings when you have multiple calendars is to be vigilant. It's very bad when we have computers to save us from this hard work.
However, if you're juggling so many things on your calendar that you can't see forests of stress, being able to turn multiple calendars on or off can be a huge help.
