With more than 42% of the US workforce currently working from home, the need to easily and accurately schedule meetings and events has never been more important.
If you’re still relying on notepads, post-it notes, and manual schedulers, then you’re setting yourself up for failure.
You need a smarter solution, one that colleagues — and customers, if you’re client-facing — can book into without having to pick up the phone, or even send you a text to see if you’re available.
You need a calendar creator: an online solution to scheduling that allows everyone to see — depending on what you fancy sharing — what you’re up to in real-time.
The problem is, there’s an overabundance of calendar creators out there today — how are you to know which is going to work best for you?
Well, you’ve stumbled across the perfect resource, you lucky thing.
This article is going to teach you about the 8 key features you need in your next calendar creator.
Let’s take a look.
Get started with staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud
What is a calendar creator?
Gone are the days of wall planners and paper calendars with all of your appointments on them.
Okay, there’s still the one your kid made at school, and the one with the cute cats that you got for Christmas, sure, but these are more for a distraction than they are for actually getting stuff done.
A calendar creator is an online platform that allows you to build your own custom calendar to book meetings into, to allow others to book time with you, and to block out time for admin and other non-interactive activities.
Why do I need a calendar?
It’s pretty simple.
If you want to stay organized in the chaos that surrounds modern work environments, then you need a calendar.
It’s not enough to just have a few to-do lists for each day. That’s a recipe for never getting anything done.
You also need a calendar to allow others — both within your company and outside — to know when you’re available and to request a time to meet.
What to look for in a calendar maker
It’s safe to say there’s no shortage of calendar generator tools out there, but they don’t offer you the same features as something more specialized.
For example, you’ll get a Google Calendar for free when you have a Gmail account. But, if you want a truly personalized calendar — one that really inspires productivity — then you should be on the lookout for these 8 key features.
1. Integration with other calendars
Let’s start simple:
You need to make sure that your custom calendar maker plays nicely with calendars from other makers.
That’s because you might have a few different calendars operating.
Maybe you have work and personal calendars on different platforms, or perhaps you’re running more than one company. And there’s a fair chance you’ll need to sync up with someone else who’s using different software.
staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud’s calendar makes it seamless to sync data from other calendar providers, including Google, Outlook, and iCalendar:
2. Color coding
Most people work within a monthly calendar, like this:
The problem with this is that it can quickly come to look like a screen full of blue blobs that give little context to what that event actually is.
That’s why you need to choose a calendar design tool that offers you flexibility in terms of color-coding your events.
This will help you see at a glance any important dates or meetings. For example, you might make internal team meetings red, client meetings blue, and admin time green.
3. Adjustable view settings
The beauty of online calendar creators, though, is that you don’t have to be stuck in the monthly view like you are with your typical wall calendar or desk calendar.
Make sure you find a calendar creator that allows you to adjust your view to different time periods:
A well-equipped Work OS will also give you the ability to display your calendar as a widget in a larger dashboard.
4. Split-screen views
We all hate time killers. But for some reason, we all put up with having to constantly switch between tabs or windows to move between our digital workspace and our weekly organizers.
It’s an easy fix, though. Just download a calendar maker that gives you split-screen mode.
This way, you can keep one eye on the long-term without taking yourself away from the work at hand.
5. Filters
If you’re a super busy professional — and who isn’t these days? — then your calendar is probably absolutely stacked with meetings, events, and deadlines.
The challenge with this, especially with any paper calendar style, is that you can’t narrow in on specific types of events.
In other words, it’s all or nothing.
When searching for an online calendar creator, you should prioritize features that allow you to search and filter your appointments to avoid wading through a myriad of colorful boxes to find the one you’re actually looking for.
6. Ability to share your calendar
But wait, your calendar isn’t just for you, right?
It’s also there to let others see when you’re available — or not available — and book time with you.
For that reason, you’re going to need a calendar tool that makes sharing easy, like ours:
7. Automation for repeating events
If you’re using your calendar to track absolutely everything, from monthly team meetings right down to your day-to-day workload, then there’s a very good chance that you’ll find yourself adding the same tasks each week.
For example, every time you tick off the “Complete Project” event, you’ll probably be adding a “Present Project” event.
To save yourself the time of going in and adding these events each and every time, find a calendar platform that gives you simple automation recipes to take care of it for you.
8. Ability to get work done in your calendar
Remember what we said before about how much of a pain it is when you have to keep switching windows to move between your Work OS and your calendar?
Well, what if your Work OS was your calendar?
When working with a staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud calendar, you can click on calendar events and edit the assigned task directly, without having to faff about with 1,000 tabs.
Why staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud is the calendar creator you need
You’ve probably noticed already that we’re pretty proud of the features included in staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud’s calendar.
Well, we wanted to share with you something about our calendar creator that will really take your workflows to the next level.
Our calendar isn’t just a calendar. Remember how we mentioned that thing about your Work OS being your calendar? That’s us, over here at staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud.
And when we say your calendar is part of a bigger Work OS, we mean really part of.
That’s because the events on your staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud calendar are tied directly to the items you have assigned to complete.
Let’s explain. Take a look at this staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud board:
A quick look at this board tells us it belongs to a team of developers or IT professionals. It outlines the tasks that need completing, the person responsible for each item, how long is to be spent on the task, and what percentage of the task is complete.
But there’s a fifth column: the Date column.
This column is like your secret weapon, as it allows the item to show up on your calendar.
All you have to do is add the Calendar view to your staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud board, and voila!
Now you can see all of your tasks — or your team’s tasks — spread out across the month or week, and even filter them down if you’re wanting to get more specific.
Then, you can share your newly created calendar with whoever you need. You can embed it on your site or blog page, or use the shareable link in your email signature to allow customers to book a time to chat.
Time to get scheduling!
Let’s recap on the key features you need to look out for when hunting down a platform to create an effective and stunning calendar:
- Integration with other calendars
- The ability to color-code events
- Adjustable view settings
- Split-screen views
- Filters
- Ability to share your calendar
- Automation for repeating events
- Ability to get work done in your calendar
We’ll save you the time searching, and let you know right now that staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud boasts all of these features and so, so many more.
So what are you waiting for?
Get started with our calendar template today.
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