How to set up and use a calendar app

Sounds cliched, but I can’t survive without my calendar, Franchesca Ramsey

Without a calendar, I think my life would be a mess (I mean, more than it already is 😉), I would forget appointments, meetings, and anniversaries, and when I was meant to do some tasks.Calendars help us stay organized and prioritize tasks in ways that are different from a to-do list. We use them to keep track of appointments, birthdays, dates, family and school events and keep our schedules organized and accessible to others.  

They can remind us about upcoming events, trips, meetings or plans, they eliminate all kinds of overlap, and allow us to share entire calendars or some events with family, friends, and coworkers - they help teams keep track of each other’s schedules, tasks, and deadlines.

Google Calendar

Google Calendar is more than one of the most popular online calendars, but an immensely powerful time management tool.

1. Calendar Settings: the cog icon (, Settings) is at the top right of the screen. You can change your language, region, time zone, event settings (the default duration of events that you add to the calendar, from 15 minutes up to 120 minutes), view options (e.g., do not show declined events), etc.
2. Import/Export calendars: , Settings, Import & Export. CSV is the most compatible format, but if you are exporting your calendar from an Apple Calendar, choose vCard.
3. Sharing a calendar: Hover the cursor over the calendar you want to share and click the three dots that appear, Settings and sharing. You can make your calendar public (Make available to public, this is the only way to let people who don’t have Google Calendar view your calendar) or share it with some friends, partners or work colleagues (Share with specific people, Add people).
4. Adding calendars: , Settings, Add calendar, Browse calendars of interest, e.g., Regional holidays, Holidays in Spain.
5. Turn on/off notifications on the device (, Settings, General, scroll to the Notification section and turn on Notify on this device), select a tone from a list that will beep at you to remind you of the event (by tapping Calendar notifications), and turn on/off the vibrate settings.
6. Quick responses (, Settings, General, scroll to the Quick responses section) are predefined messages to send to guests of an event if you are running late or unable to attend for any reason.
7. Add events. Click on the plus icon Create, Event. Type a title, the date (All day, start-end time, recurring event), and a description, choose the calendar you want to use, a color for the event, the location, and the type of notification you want to receive. Besides, you can add guests to the event so they can see it on their own calendars and engage with the event.  
8. Keyboard shortcuts: Press “?” to see the list of keyboard shortcuts. c: Create event. e: Edit event. Backspace: Delete event. t: Today. s: Settings.

Other options: Apple Calendar (iOS, macOS, web), Thunderbird (there are not any mobile apps, but it is free and open-source), GroupCal (Android and iOS), and Butleroy (iOS, macOS).

Calcurse

Calcurse is a free calendar and scheduling application for the command line. There are three panels: Appointments, Calendar, and To-do list. You can move between the panels by pressing the tab key. You can add a new item to a panel by pressing a, edit by pressing e, and delete by pressing d.

1. Installation: brew install calcurse (macOS), sudo apt-get install calcurse (Ubuntu/Linux Mint), sudo pacman -S calcurse (Arch).
2. Calcurse can be run in two different modes: interactive or non-interactive mode. For instance, calcurse -d 30 will print your appointments and events for the next 30 days.
3. To add a new event, press tab to go to the Calendar panel, choose the date (e.g., 26/07/22), then type a.

     Enter start time ([hh:mm] or [hhmm]), leave blank for an all-day event: ENTER/INTRO (an all-day event). 
     Enter description: Aunt Ana, Saint day & Birthday. 
   

4. To set it as a recurrent event (e.g., once per month), press r.
5. To add a new task, press tab to go to the ToDo panel, then type a. Write a description and set a priority (1-9).

user@pc:~$ calcurse -d 30
26/07/22:
 * Aunt Ana, Saint day & Birthday

27/07/22:
 - 09:00 -> 10:00
	Blood Test

28/07/22:
 * Vitamins D Hidroferol

29/07/22:
 * Mom's & Martha's Saint Day

 

You can import a calendar from Google Calendar, press i, and Calcurse will ask you to enter the file name to import data from. On your machine, open Google Calendar. In the top right, click the Gear icon and select Settings. In the menu on the left, click Import & Export, under the Export section, click Export. A Zip file will be downloaded to your computer. Unzip it and this is the file that you were looking for.

Besides, you can enter calcurse’s interactive Configure mode by pressing C; then typing c (lowercase) will lead you to the Color scheme configuration (it displays possible choices for foreground and background colors). If you type l, it will allow you to choose the layout of the main calcurse screen (you can decide where to put the three panels -Appointments, Calendar, and To-do- on your screen).  

Finally, typing g allows you to edit its General Options (it controls calcurse’s general behavior):

  format.outputdate = %d/%m/%y (day/month/year)