Never Miss Another Appointment: Mastering Google Calendar Alerts for Optimal Time Management

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When was the last time you missed a meeting or event you had in your Google Calendar? It’s happened to me on plenty of occasions… or at least it did before I took the time to configure notifications for the Google calendars I depend on . Prior to that, I had to depend on my memory or constantly glance at my calendar to see what was next. And given how much I depend on Google Calendar, there has always been a lot to miss.

Requirements

The only thing you’ll need for this is a valid Google account and a web browser. As I mentioned, you can configure different notifications for different calendars, but it also works if you’re only using the default Google calendar. I have multiple Google Calendars for different clients and different endeavors but I don’t have to configure notifications for all of them.

With that said, let’s configure.

How to add notifications to your Google Calendar

1. Log in to Google

The first thing to be done is to open your web browser and log in to your Google account. Once you’ve done that, head over to http://calendar.google.com .

2. Open Settings for the calendar in question

In the left navigation, under My Calendars, locate the calendar you want to configure and hover your cursor over the name. You should see a three-dot menu button. Click that button and then, from the pop-up, click Settings and sharing.

Select your calendar and then click “Settings and sharing.”

Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET

3. Locate Event notifications

In the resulting window, scroll down until you see Event notifications. In that section, click the Notification drop-down and select either Notification or Email. Once you’ve done that, type a number and then click the right drop-down and select between minutes, hours, days, and weeks. So, if you wanted to be emailed a reminder one day prior to the event, you’d select Email, 1, Days.

Creating a notification for a specific Google Calendar.

Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET

4. Add another reminder

Say you want that one-day prior email reminder, but you also want a one-hour prior notification. For that, click Add Notification and configure the second notification as such – Notification, 1, Hour.

Simple. And you can add as many notifications as you need. If one particular calendar houses very important events, you might add three notifications like this:

Email - 1 - Week
Email - 1 - Day
Notification - 30 - Minutes

Use a bit of creativity with your Google Calendar notifications and you’ll never miss another meeting or event.

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Never Miss Another Appointment: Mastering Google Calendar Alerts for Optimal Time Management