Easier Life Balance with Google Calendar
Thursday, May 6, 2010 at 1:36 PM A calendar such as Google Calendar is great for planning how I'm going to spend my time in the upcoming week. It would also be helpful to know how much time I'm spending in different activities, to help me to balance my life better. Unfortunately, I haven't found a calendar program that makes it easy to see this information. Fortunately, Google Calendar makes it easy to add features so the information can be present right next to your calendar.
I've created a Google Calendar Sidebar Gadget that tracks how many hours you're spending in tagged events:
To use it, add a line anywhere in a calendar event description that looks like this:
tags: client, social
You can include as many tags as you want (or just one tag), separated by commas. When the tagged event is visible on your Google Calendar, its duration will be counted in the Time Tracker. If a tagged event is not currently visible on your calendar, then its tags will not be counted. Thus, the tags that show up in the Time Tracker are determined automatically and vary based on which events you are viewing.
You may notice that the number of hours counted doesn't always add up to the Total amount. This is because some events may have multiple tags and so are counted more than once.
This tool is particularly useful when using your calendar as a to-do list.
Feedback
Please let me know what you think (and let me know if you have any problems) by posting a comment below.
Add to Calendar
You may use Time Tracker for free. There are two methods to add the Time Tracker gadget to Google Calendar, depending on whether or not you're using the Google Apps version.
Normal Google Account
Google Apps Account
calendar, time, tool in The Calendar Game
Reader Comments (19)
This seems to work pretty well, thanks a bunch man(:
will let you know if i find any problems!
This is a great tool and solves a number of problems I had been trying to address. Really appreciate it. If you do happen to update it in the future, a couple suggestions.
- Smaller increments. Breaking down the hours to a .5 (30 min) would be a great help. Not all tasks are an hour long, but this counter assumes this. This creates small errors in time management as two .5 hour appointments list as 2 hours on the counter (if they have different tags). [David: Good suggestion, I added this.]
- Predefined keywords in the gadget. Allowing users to set the keywords (or tags)in the gadget to be searched for in the calendar would be a great way to streamline this tool. Example: I add "Client" as a tag category in the gadget, then it counts all events that have "Client" written in them somewhere. This would be much quicker than the current method because adding "tag: this, that, the other" in event description means that quick add cannot be utilized when creating tagged events. Opening the event in full and adding to the description is a much slower process.
I really am greatful for this wonderful tool and these suggestions should not suggest otherwise. Thanks again.
Superb!
This app is just what I need! The only reason why it may not work for me is that time granularity may not be small enough. I would need at least 30 minutes increments to be available. I hope you're able to modify it this way soon. Thanks!
I tried to install it, but apparently IE8 doesn't like it:
Message: Object doesn't support this property or method
Line: 4
Char: 494
Code: 0
URI: http://3h3fb1ib1sj29dd41phjou1e8iujqicf-a-calendar-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/ifr?v=fdb2b406636e1f3cff1c5d7e660f59eb&container=calendar&view=default&lang=en&url=http://www.TheProductivityGame.com/TimeTracker/gadget.xml&country=ALL&libs=core:dynamic-height:google.calendar-0.5:google.calendar-0.5.read:locked-domain&parent=http://www.google.com/calendar
John, it already does 30 minute increments (I've updated Wes's comment to make this more obvious). I'll take a look at compatibility with IE8; thanks for your bug report.
Which browsers are people successfully using with it?
I would use this alot if I was able to tag calendars opposed as events as i split everything into different calendars.
Great initiative!
Great app!!! I am testing it and it looks very usefull!
Thanks for it!
John, I've used it in Firefox and I just tested it successfully in Safari and Chrome.
This is just what I was looking for although a couple of things that would be nice. Ability to print off the result and to have it as a widget on the desk top if that's possible.
Can this be done or is there something that will allow these tings to be done?
Andy
Andy,
I suppose you could print the gadget using your normal browser print function. As far as being on the desktop, no that won't work because it's integrated tightly with Google Calendar.
David
I've been looking for something like this for a while now. Just wanted to say thanks! I'm a freelancer and this is much easier than manually tallying each and every session.
I think this is a great app! However, I use Apps, and have multiple 'sub calendars.' It seems that the tags only work with the main calendar on the app. Is there any way to include those calendars too?
I love this tool. One question - what is the best way to add Tags to invites that are coming from other people?
This is a great first step. I would like an enhancement, however. I use my calendar to track my hours for projects, each of which has its own calendar. I use the description to actually enumerate project detail that gets put on my invoices and reports. Rather than using tags (though valuable), I would simply prefer to total by calendar instead. Can this be done? I think a lot of other users would like that feature as well from reading the forums. Thanks!
Thankyou for this tool, its a very useful addition for my application of using Google Calender for staff rostering. Is it possible to update it so that it scans the event title for tags as well as the event description
Dean
Drew, the gadget reads events from the calendars that are currently selected.
Sean & Dean, thanks for your suggestions. I've suspended development of this gadget indefinitely and can't tell you when I may make any further enhancements.
David
Awesome gadget! Absolutely what I needed! Thank you very much!